


Aethertrails

by DT Maxwell (Draya)



Series: Whiskey & Arcanima [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Aunt-Niece Relationship, Aymeric is a total workaholic, Bar Room Brawl, Battle of Carteneau, Binding Coils of Bahamut, Carbuncle Shenanigans, Domestic Fluff, Don't do it, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, FFxivWrite2017, Female Friendship, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood Spoilers, Fluff, Food Porn, Gen, Hangover, Injury, Mad Science, Magic and Science, Male-Female Friendship, Mathematics, Mealvaan's Gate, Mild Blood, Minor Character Death, Multiple Warriors of Light, Nerdiness, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rereha is a gossipy hen and Synnove refuses to share, Romantic Fluff, Smuggling, Snow Day, Spoilers, Synnove and Cid are terrifying friends, Synnove is also a total workaholic, Synnove's mother is a conniving and epic bitch, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trolling, don't treat arrow wounds like this kiddos, if you can't raz your bestie when she wants the sordid details what's the point?, meanwhile Synnove and Nero mutually loathe one another, not that Synnove is any better, or Synnove will violently murder you, plagiarism is bad kids, shameless Galette is shameless, to say they don't get along is a massive understatement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-09 07:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 21,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12883359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draya/pseuds/DT%20Maxwell
Summary: Collection of completed prompt fills from the FFXIV Write 2017 challenge on Tumblr. Starring Synnove Greywolfe, full time Summoner and part time Warrior of Light, and featuring sassy friends, Arcanist's Guild ridiculousness, Ishgardian boyfriends, and (of course!) mischievous carbuncles.--One new chapter will be posted daily throughout December. Tags will be updated as each prompt fill is added.





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are! This Table of Contents is to give those of you here on Ao3 a taste of what's to come over the next month, as well as provide quick summaries of each chapter and any pertinent warnings.
> 
> Please look forward to it!

**1\. Table of Contents**  
(You are here!)

**2\. Avoidance**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, the carbuncles, Synnove's Aunt Angharad, and Synnove's Issues with her mother)

**3\. From Stem to Stern**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove in all of her Senior Assessor's glory; WARNINGS for implied violence and off-screen death)

**4\. Vuelve a la Vida**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Rereha, and their preferred hangover cure)

**5\. Equations**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Halulu, Dancing Heron, and Synnove's epic levels of nerdery)

**6\. How Galette Got Her Name**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove and Galette - title is self explanatory!)

**7\. Aetherial Abomination (Maybe)**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, the carbuncles, and A'khebica Ginwa; the continuing escapades of the Arcanist's Guild)

**8\. Sunrise**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, the carbuncles, and some early morning introspection)

**9\. Glow**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, the carbuncles, and Synnove's Calamity PTSD)

**10\. Multitasking**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Alakhai, Alakhai's badassery, and more of Synnove's nerdery)

**11\. Re-Calibration**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Heron, and Synnove's mad science tendencies; dialogue fic!)

**12\. Echoes**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Rereha, Heron, Alakhai, and more Calamity PTSD; spoilers for all three raids of the Binding Coils of Bahamut)

**13\. Reactions**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, A'khebica Ginwa, Keltgeim Eyristerwyn, and Arcanist's Guild shenanigans)

**14\. Succor**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Rereha, Heron, Alakhai, the carbuncles, and a _very_ special guest!)

**15\. Kiss and Tell**  
(Mostly Gen with implied Aymeric/WoL, featuring Synnove and Rereha and their salty friendship)

**16\. Glamour**  
(Gen, featuring Rereha, Heron, Alakhai, and a sylph who _almost_ got it right)

**17\. Ragging**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Ivar, Cid Garlond, and more salty friendships!)

**18\. Letters**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove and Aunt Angharad, in Synnove's teenage years)

**19\. Academic Debate**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, the carbuncles, Rereha, Cid, Nero tol Scaeva, and Synnove and Nero's mutual loathing.)

**20\. Ishgardian Tea**  
(Aymeric/WoL, featuring Aymeric, Galette, and Synnove, and Aymeric's workaholic habits)

**21\. Anonymity**  
(Aymeric/WoL, featuring Aymeric, Synnove, the carbuncles, and unabashed fluff)

**22\. Reckoning**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Galette, and Galette's Garuda-egi sub-programming)

**23\. Waking Nightmare**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove and ruminations on the nature of science and man; WARNINGS for frank discussions of in-game atrocities, and SPOILERS for _Stormblood_ )

**24\. Breakfast Run**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Rereha, and the never-ending hunt for good breakfast establishments)

**25\. Assessments**  
(Aymeric/WoL, featuring Aymeric, Synnove, Tyr, Synnove's workaholic habits, and two disgustingly in love people)

**26\. Sunset**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Galette, and pensive ponderings under the watchful gaze of Azeyma the Warden)

**27\. Bar Brawling**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Heron, Rereha, and the usual circumstances of going out to drink in Ul'dah; WARNINGS for violence)

**28\. Academic Integrity**  
(Gen, featuring Synnove, Ivar, A'khebica Ginwa, Keltgeim Eyristerwyn, and the one thing guaranteed to get Synnove to skip straight from a slow-burn temper to seriously consider violent, bloody murder; WARNINGS for Synnove's very graphic descriptions of said violent, bloody murder)

**29\. Cartomancy**  
(Mostly Gen with implied Aymeric/WoL, featuring Synnove, Aunt Angharad, and more of Synnove's Issues with her mother)

**30\. Snow Day**  
(Aymeric/WoL, featuring Synnove, Aymeric, the carbuncles, and fluffy cuddles in bed)


	2. Avoidance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 1: Specter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 1, 2017.

“No.”

“Synnove-”

“No.”

“She’s mellowed with age-”

“No. _No._ Nope. Nope nope nope.” Synnove stood from her spot at the kitchen table, closing books and shoving loose papers into journals and sticking graphite and quills and a hastily-closed pot of ink into a leather case. Tyr banged his paw on the cast iron door of the oven as he came over with his basket in his mouth, setting it on the floor when he reached his mama’s side, and obediently dropping items into the basket as Synnove handed them to him.

Angharad put her hands on her hips. “You’ve never had the best relationship-”

“Nope! Nope nope nope.”

“But isn’t it time-”

“Nope! Noooope!”

Ivar stuck his head out of the oven, groggy from being awoken from his nap. He grumped and huffed and grudgingly crawled out, shutting the door behind him with one of his hind feet to keep the heat in as the bread baked. The ruby carbuncle shook the ash and coal dust from his fur, yawned, and toddled over to headbutt Synnove's shin.

“Nope nope nope nope-”

“And, all right, she’s done nothing to mend things on her end, but are you really going to go the rest of at least her life without saying another word to her?”

Synnove stopped in front of her aunt, research journals haphazardly piled together and balanced under one arm, and looked her dead in the eye. “ _Yes,_ ” she said.

Then she kissed Angharad’s cheek, turned on her heel, scooped Galette up from where the emerald carbuncle was gorging herself on fig tartlets, and briskly walked out the door to the back courtyard, likely to head in the direction of Rereha’s family’s estate. Tyr and Ivar bounded after her, the giant topaz carbuncle with the basket of academic sundries in his mouth. The faint “ _nope nope nope nope_ ” of Synnove’s mantra faded into the distance.

Angharad sighed. It wasn’t as if she liked her good-sister herself, but at least she could tell her good-brother that she had tried. Honestly, Harvardr had to be smoking moko grass if he thought this particular relationship would ever be repaired. Isolde Greywolfe neé Greene was a right harpy of a bitch; good for business, bad for child-rearing. (Well, when she had paid attention to her children at all beyond what they could contribute to the reestablishment of the Greene Shipping Consortium.)

She should probably thank the Matron and Destroyer both that Synnove didn’t _actively_ wish a fiery death on her mother.


	3. From Stem to Stern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 2: Synthetic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 2, 2017.
> 
> Also, yes, I actually found the deck layout of a Dutch East Indiaman as my reference for the merchant ship portrayed here.

“Assessor Greywolfe, surely this is unnecessary.” The Thavnairian merchant-captain’s voice was oily, his smile a touch too-wide under flat, angry eyes. It was more like a baring of teeth than a sign of pleasantry. “My ship has already undergone the mandatory inspection - twice!”

Synnove’s answering smile was easy, practiced, small and polite. “Captain, when two ships in your fleet, on two separate occasions, have not been found smuggling contraband, _then_ you may speak to me of unnecessary searches. Per Admiral Bloefhiswyn’s decree of the Second Sun, Fourth Umbral Moon, Second Year of the Seventh Umbral Era, part two, paragraph sixteen, clause three: merchant vessels of the same affiliation who have been individually found to be in possession of illegal goods on one prior occasion must submit to two independent searches by two different assessors of Mealvaan’s Gate. Per clause four: vessels of same affiliation who have been individually found to be in possession of illegal goods on _two_ prior occasions must submit to a total of three independent searches by three different assessors of Mealvaan’s Gate.”

For a brief moment, her smile was hard, but in a blink it was once again soft and cordial. “Now, Captain,” she said, “please step aside, or I will have to ask my escort to remove you from the vessel and charge you with obstruction.”

A Sea Wolf Yellowjacket standing at her right shoulder cracked her knuckles. The second Yellowjacket on her left, a miqo'te, giggled, twitching ears causing her gold jewelry to jangle loudly.

The grinding of the captain’s teeth was audible from the quay, and his face was red with fury, but after a handful of tense seconds, he stepped away from the railing.

Synnove, pleasant perfect smile still firmly in place, ascended the gangplank to the deck of the _Sun Princess._ Galette and Tyr trotted at her heels, and the full squad of four Yellowjackets tromped behind them.

She ignored the glowers of the crew as she surveyed the deck. They were not her problem, but rather that of Tyr and the Yellowjackets, and deigning to acknowledge their anger would only undermine her authority here. Part of an assessor’s job was projecting confidence and image, the surety of her place as an agent of the thalassocracy: shoulders back, head high, hands clasped loosely behind her back, exuding self-assurance and calm. Her expertly tailored longcoat in summoner green, black pants and gloves, tall black boots, a grimoire on her hip, and two carbuncles at her feet - one the size of an Ishgardian sheepdog, the kind that protected flocks of karakul from Abalathian bears, wolves, and even dragons - helped complete the image of a woman not to be crossed.

The fact that she was six fulms, two ilms tall and the discreet padding in her jacket shoulders broadened her shoulders even further certainly helped matters.

“Galette,” Synnove said, voice mild. “Search.”

The emerald carbuncle chirruped, set her nose to the wood, and began.

Synnove stayed a few steps behind her carbuncle as they worked, as poised and relaxed as if she were enjoying a stroll across the Aftcastle. They swept the whole of the top of the ship first: poop deck, the little cabin at its back where the crew kept chickens, the quarter deck, upper cabins, forecastle deck, and the upper deck and its assorted rooms and cabins. Tyr stayed on her left the whole time, not bothering to hide his suspicion eyeing of the _Sun Princess_ ’s crew; the small troop of Yellowjackets loosely arrayed around her did the same.

Once they went properly below deck, Synnove gestured for two of the Yellowjackets - Lynathota, the same Sea Wolf who had cracked her knuckles, and K’dhamya, the Seeker who had laughed - to take point as they moved through the orlap deck. Galette took them all through every room, from the boatswain’s room and carpenter’s cabin at the bow to the constable’s room at the stern, carefully sniffing every bag and box she came across, paying particular attention as they went through the crew quarters and galley. The cook scowled when Galette took an appreciative extra sniff of a jar of fruit preserves, but Synnove's little glutton knew better than to indulge her sweet tooth while working.

And then they descended into the hold.

Galette picked her head up, ears twitching, when she came close to the entrance to the main hold from the powder room. She took a deep breath, then another. And _sneezed._

Synnove felt her placid mask chip, just a little, as the corner of her mouth briefly twitched up.

K'dhamya pushed the hold door open and Galette chirruped her thanks to her as she darted inside. The Yellowjackets followed, then Synnove, then the rest of the squad. Behind them, someone cursed.

Galette was sniffing loudly as she moved through the crates and sacks stacked throughout the main hold, but she knew exactly where she was going, showing no hesitation as she walked. They reached the center of the hold, and she jumped from the floor to the top of a crate, then up again so she was sitting on the middle level. She dug at the space between two crates, cheeping loudly. _Mommy, Mommy, move these, please!_

“Lynathota, Bhaldwyrn, could you please move the crate Galette has pointed out, as well as the one on top of it?”

“Not a problem, ma’am,” Lynathota said with a shark’s grin. She and the second Sea Wolf moved forward, with Tyr, K’dhamya, and the fourth Yellowjacket - a male Midlander by the name of Kinnison, nearly as tall and broad as a Highlander - took up a cordon around Synnove. The merchant-captain, who’d followed them the entire search, was turning purple with rage, noticeable even in the dim lighting of the hold.

Synnove’s smile stayed perfectly pleasant. But she didn’t bother to hide the excited gleam in her eyes.

Lynathota and Bhaldwyrn climbed up the crates - Galette scampered out of the way, jumping down to pace an anxious circle around Synnove - and began moving the crate just above where Galette had been. That done, they moved the one she’d stopped in front of so it rested on top of the rest, and hopped back down.

Galette darted back up into the nook the Sea Wolves had made, and _yowled_ as she frantically pawed at the crate now revealed. _Bad, bad, bad things! Mommy, bad things!_

Synnove finally let go of her fake smile, and allowed a feral wolf’s grin to take its place as she easily hauled herself up next to her carbuncle. She held out her hand, without looking, and Kinnison slapped a crowbar into it. Then Synnove shoved the crowbar into the edge of the crate, carefully prying the nails apart in three different spots; once she was satisfied, she unceremoniously yanked _down_ to pull off the whole side.

Bags of somnus tumbled out around Synnove’s feet. Galette hissed at them, and jumped up onto her mama’s shoulders.

Synnove gave her a scritch behind the ears. “Good _giiiiiiirl,_ ” she cooed. “Best nose in the Gate, yes you _are!_ ”

Galette made a trilling _myaaa~h_ sound of utter delight, leaning into the scratches.

Behind them, someone gave a cry. Synnove whirled and ducked, dodging a thrown knife (to Galette’s piercing shriek of rage), and Tyr lunged for the sailor who’d thrown it, snarling with teeth bared. The Yellowjackets bellowed a war cry as Synnove blasted _Tri-Disaster_ into the midst of the charging crew, axes drawn and forming a barricade against the bull rush. K’dhamya raised a whistle to her lips and blew three long, loud bursts that echoed through the hold, and to the Yellowjackets on the dock beyond; an answering whistle rang out, followed by the roared order of a Yellowjacket captain to her platoon to board the merchantman.

A cast of _Bane,_ as Galette leaped from her shoulders and tumbled midair to unleash an aerial slash, and then Synnove darted forward and joined the fray properly.

—

When Synnove descended the gangplank, Yellowjackets marching the crew of the _Sun Princess_ in chains behind her (and carrying the body of the man who’d thrown the knife at her on a stretcher covered with a spare piece of sailcloth), her shoulder were back and head held high, hands clasped neatly behind her, though her gloves were gone and her knuckles were obviously bloodied from being forced to brawl hand to hand at some point in the melee. Galette was draped around her shoulders, tearing off pieces of rosewater-flavored Hannish delight held carefully between her paws and chewing happily on her well-earned reward. Tyr followed behind the prisoners, growling with teeth bared and blood staining his muzzle, snapping at the heels of the Thavnairian captain.

Synnove’s smile was wide and fiercely proud and utterly genuine.


	4. Vuelve a la Vida

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 3: The Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 8, 2017. (Yeah, this one got done late!)

“There are no gods,” Rereha said hoarsely.

Synnove grunted an agreement.

The Limsan sun was bright and cheerful, the sky a beautiful blue with nary a cloud in sight. Gulls cried as they circled the harbor, and the early morning clamor of Hawker’s Alley was already in full swing. Cooking spices perfumed the air, mixing with the scents of roasting meats and fish, savory herbs, and the ever-present brine of Galadion Bay. Rereha and Synnove sat at a table near the food stalls off the main drag, close to the Arcanist’s Guild, the gaudily-dyed table umbrella shading them from the sun.

Both of them were wearing large, darkly tinted glasses that completely obscured their eyes (and quite a bit of the rest of their faces) and stood out starkly against the grey-green casts of their skin. Combined with the way the pair was doing their damnedest to avoid moving and how they flinched every time a particularly loud noise echoed through the Alley, and it was clear the two were _incredibly_ hungover.

“Why do we do this?” Rereha said, slumping to put her cheek on the tabletop. She groaned appreciatively as the cool wood eased some of the throbbing in her skull.

“You’re incapable of gambling or playing for a crowd without a drink in hand,” Synnove said, her tone that of someone who had answered this same inquiry a hundred times before and likely would again. She was slouched all the way back in her chair, head lolling over the backrest, arms crossed under her breasts and legs sprawled under the table since she wasn’t competing for leg room with anyone this morning. “I’m incapable of dealing with you playing a crowd without a drink in hand. And we’re both incapable of turning down Baderon when he serves us the _good_ whiskey at a discount.”

“Stop being articulate, it offends me.”

Not bothering to look up, Synnove raised both hands for a double bird salute.

Rereha snickered, then groaned as the movement caused her headache to flare again. “Rhalgr take me,” the lalafell moaned.

Synnove grunted and recrossed her arms.

A moment later, one of the many granddaughters that worked at Mama Fyrwyb’s fish stall arrived with their breakfast orders: two of the old Sea Wolf matriarch’s Back From The Dead guaranteed hangover cures. It consisted of a huge glass goblet, filled with shrimp, crab, raw oysters, and chunks of the most perfectly cooked octopus in all of Limsa Lominsa, swimming in a ‘sauce’ of tomato juice, sugar, salt, black pepper, lime juice, and three pureed dragon peppers. The concoction was finished off with a topping of green onions and slices of alligator pear.

Of course, since they were regulars and had proved on numerous occasions that they could handle the heat, Mama Fyrwyb threw in a chopped up blood pepper each for their orders.

“Traders bless you,” Rereha told their waitress with fervent thanks, sitting up as she did.

“Llymlaen grace your nets,” Synnove said with the same intensity, dragging her feet back in and leaning forward.

Fyrwyb’s granddaughter cackled good-naturedly as she handed them each a long, heavy metal spoon. “Wave me down if y’need another, girls,” she said as she turned around, on her way back to the stall to fill more orders.

Rereha and Synnove clinked their spoons together, winced at the loud _clank,_ and dug in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _vuelve a la vida_ ("return to life") is a real seafood cocktail that is a popular hangover cure in the Mexican state of Veracruz. I love seafood cocktails, and as a transplant to Limsa Lominsa, I don't doubt Synnove acquired a taste for them, too!
> 
> Alligator pears, btw, are what I assume to be the Eorzean equivalent of avocados.


	5. Equations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 4: Self-editing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 4, 2017.

“How long has she been like this?”

Halulu groped around the mess of her desk, not looking up from the epidemiology department’s most recent report on their part in the research for a cure to the tonberry plague, until her hand finally found her pocket watch. She tore her gaze from the page and squinted at the clock face held just a few ilms from her nose. “Five hours, give or take twenty minutes,” she said.

Heron didn’t bat an eye; that was far from the record. “And how long has she been _awake?_ ”

The tonberry cocked her head as she mentally subtracted the time. “Forty-two hours.”

“And you haven’t dosed her coffee yet?!”

Halulu shrugged at her. “No mania or mad cackling or attempts to blow up anything, just lots of muttering and staring. It’s less research and more puzzle-solving she's doing.”

The subject of their conversation, meanwhile, was sitting stock still on the very top of a tall ladder positioned to give its occupant a clear view of three slate chalkboards at floor level, and two more built into the walls on the top of the mounted bookshelves. Synnove was barefoot, toes curled around the second rung from the top, with her elbows braced on her knees and her fingers laced together and pressed up against her lips. Beneath a deeply furrowed brow, her green eyes darted from one board to another, examining the equations written on them in various colors of chalk.

(Said chalk was, of course, also covering damn near every inch of Synnove, too. But it wouldn’t be Synnove without the semi-ghostly visage.)

Heron had known her friend long enough, and listened to enough of her rantings and explanations over the years, to recognize that the equations covering a third of all Synnove's slate boards didn’t represent any sort of spell or natural phenomenon, but were instead a purely mathematical theorem. Incredibly advanced calculus going by some of the symbols present, and the paladin could feel her brain trying to backpedal from Synnove’s idea of a good time. Attempting to absorb it was... intimidating.

Halulu had buried her nose back in her own research, so Heron went over to the overstuffed couch, stepping over the pile of snoozing carbuncles in one of the sun spots let in by the windows higher up in the tower office, and set her gear down. (Tyr's ears swivelled in his sleep at the soft _thunk,_ ever the attentive guardian, but he quickly settled back into his role as pillow for his smaller sibs.) She rummaged in her pack, took out a battered deck of cards, and sat cross-legged on the rug, leaning back against the couch as she dealt herself a game of solitaire.

An hour and a half later, Synnove _cackled._

Halulu fell out of her chair with a yelp, parchment and quills flying. Heron, reshuffling her deck for yet another solitaire game, jerked and knocked her head against the couch frame; she cursed and gingerly rubbed the newly forming lump. Galette, Tyr, and Ivar went from sound asleep to on their feet, fur bristled and frantically looking around.

Synnove leapt off the ladder with a truly awful _**crack**_ of her spine, stumbling only slightly after sitting still for so long. She did not let stiff joints or physics stop her, however, and she pushed off the floor and propelled herself toward the chalkboard directly in front of her. Her eyes gleamed madly with inspiration.

She didn’t bother with an eraser, instead using the side of her fist to wipe out an entire line of expressions and refilling it with new terms using the chalk that had been stuck in a pocket somewhere on her person, switching to different colors for emphasis on occasion. The arcanist did the same in two more places, and then entirely forewent the ladders as she climbed up the bookshelf to the right of the board she’d been working on to reach the board on top of it. Once balanced on the wide shelf top, she stood on tiptoe, erased the entire top half of the slate with her forearm, and began writing a truly nasty differential equation that somehow involved both the _e_ constant and golden ratio and had Halulu yelling about respecting the rules of logic before the tonberry cut herself off and swore as the rest of the formulae took shape.

Heron had no idea what was going on, but Synnove had yet to stop cackling.

Finally, the arcanist dropped her chalk, threw up her hands, and shouted, “Fuck you, Hannish mathematicians, I am _better than you!”_

 _‘Well,’_ Heron thought, deeply amused as her friend began doing a victory dance on top of the bookshelf, _‘it’s not like she’s_ wrong.’


	6. How Galette Got Her Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 5: Prank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 5, 2017.

Something smelled really good, so she decided she should go find it and _eat it._

First, she made sure Mommy was still asleep, carefully pawing the Highlander’s hair. Mommy snorted, but didn’t wake up, instead turning her head so her other cheek was smooshed against the open book she was using as a pillow. A fresh smear of ink covered her cheek and nose.

Satisfied, she leapt down, and padded to the door.  
She dubiously stared up at the knob. She hadn’t mastered those, yet, though latches were easy. How to get out…

Well. The obvious way, duh. Mommy couldn’t _see_ her break physics and yell about how she wasn't allowed to do that, now could she?

Satisfied with her logic, the carbuncle walked _through_ the door, aether barely rippling as she passed through solid oak. Once on the other side in the hallway, she shook herself to ensure her fur lay flat, and checked that she hadn't forgotten a tail. Satisfied she had all three, she sniffed the air, and turned right to trot down the hall.

She passed a few other arcanists as she reached the stairs and followed her nose _down,_ but no one paid her much attention, aside from a few hellos and brief pats on the head. She was on a mission, and carbuncles with determined looks on their faces like the one she bore were usually on errands for their summoners, and Mommy was a diligent, serious student. Surely she had somewhere _proper_ to be.

As she turned out of the stairwell, she chittered to herself smugly. _Hah, hah, joke’s on you!_

Her nose eventually led her to one of the offices on the second floor. She pressed her ear up against the door, waiting a few moments, but didn’t she hear any sounds indicative of someone working or asleep inside. Pleased, she phaseed through the wood as easily as she had done earlier.

She sniffed and sniffed and sniffed, walking around the office in a slow circle, until she found the source of the deliciousness: a wicker basket on top of the desk. She hopped up and nudged the lid with her nose until it lifted. She wiggled her nose into the opening, and from there stuck her whole head inside.

Success!

It didn’t look like the neat, proper pies that the Guild’s dining hall served for dessert; the crust was instead folded over toward the center to keep the filling from spilling out, and not much of the filling was thus visible. But the crust looked flaky and crispy, and that scrumptious filling! Juicy rolanberries, a hint of orange and cinnamon, and _sugaaaaaaar!_

She wiggled the front of her body into the basket so she could better reach the yumminess and to balance herself, and dug in. She trilled happily at the first bite. _Mmmmm, so good!_

Five minutes later, three-fourths of the dessert gone into her tummy, she was interrupted from her feast by a horrified shout of, “What are you _**doing?!**_ ”

She whined as she was lifted out of the basket by her scruff, waving her paws as if that would bring the dessert it contained closer. _Noooooo, need more pie-thing!_ Not fair!

Mommy held her up to eye level, and she was scowling ferociously. “That,” she said, “was a galette made by Assessor Voyce’s wife so _all_ of us on third shift tonight could have a snack.”

She chirped, unrepentant, and licked her lips. _First come, first serve, Mommy._ Her muzzle felt sticky, which was yucky. She pawed at her face, but just left more mess behind. _Gross._ Why did such tasty things have to be so messy?

“Sugar demon.”

She chirped again, and flicked her ears, and papped Mommy’s cheek, leaving behind sticky rolanberry juice and some flakes of crust. Silly Mommy, demons were mean and scary. _She_ was cute and fluffy!

Mommy’s mouth did that thing when she was trying not to smile. She hummed thoughtfully, and finally said, “You’re still in deep trouble, little Galette.”

Galette purred smugly.


	7. Aetherial Abomination (Maybe)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 6: Identification

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 7, 2017.
> 
> Guest appearance by my friend Chaemera's character, A'khebica Ginwa, and her carbuncle, Carby!

Carby sat placidly on the examination module, ears flicking gently, as Synnove closed and tightly latched the glass container. She threw a switch, and a hissing sound filled the lab as the air was sucked from the module to create a vacuum. The Highlander took her clipboard back from Tyr and strode back to the lab safety zone, the giant topaz carbuncle walking after her. Ivar, hanging from Synnove’s right shoulder, attempted to smack his big brother with his tails, but one sharp nip from Tyr got him to stop.

Khebi had her own clipboard in hand, perusing it with an adorably furrowed brow, and Galette held in her right arm, the carbuncle’s lower body and hind legs dangling like a plush toy. Galette wore a long-suffering expression, and gave Synnove a pleading look as she came to stand next to Khebi. _Mommy, why. Why this._

Synnove raised an eyebrow, then turned her attention to her own clipboard. Galette huffed.

“Subject secure, containment module secure, safety procedures observed,” she murmured, taking a pencil from behind her ear and making check marks as she went down the list. She continued muttering unintelligibly under her breath, reaching up to pull her goggles down over her eyes, then leaned over and rapped the end of her pencil against the goggles sitting on top of Khebi’s head.

The miqo’te arcanist squeaked in surprise, tail bristling momentarily and ears popping upright, and she dropped Galette to reach up and pull the goggles down. Galette also squeaked, and hit the ground with a _thunk!_ The emerald carbuncle picked herself up with a grumble, shook herself from nose to tail tips, and used her larger brother as a springboard to get to Synnove’s left shoulder. Tyr didn't even blink from his place at Synnove's side. Ivar dragged himself up to sit properly on their mama's right shoulder.

Khebi was back to reading her clipboard. “Has Carby really eaten _all_ of these?” she said, honestly bewildered. She flipped the page up to start on the second page.

“Mmhmmm. If it has an aetherial signature and has come into the Gate, he has eaten it at least once and stored it in his subspace pocket.”

“How did he even get Mister Arkwright’s signet rin- ooooooooooh, dear.”

“Yup. Right off his hand. The schlorp was… unsettling.” Synnove's expression was a quietly horror-filled disgust as she evidently relived the memory.

Khebi flattened her ears. “I hadn’t realized it had gotten so bad. I’m sorry, Miss.”

Synnove hugged her around her the shoulders with one arm, Galette muttering only a little as she was jostled. “Not your fault, dearheart. We’ll get a look at his aetherial makeup, see if maybe he’s trying to self-repair a short in his system or something.”

“…You just want to stop having to fish out your special aether-chalk every other day.”

“Well, that’s part of it. Especially after the last time: the Admiral was here for a meeting, and it’s awkward being caught standing in the middle of the hallway, shoulder-deep in a carbuncle trying to get your favorite chalk from his void storage of a stomach while he gnaws back in retaliation.”

Khebi giggled.

“All right, goggles are on, and when you’re ready, Khebi, throw the switch!”

The miqo’te cheered and scuttled over to the giant switch on the wall, the cabling leading from it to the containment module were Carby still quietly sat. Once thrown, the system would connect the module to the stores of variously aspected and unaspected crystals used as a power supply deep under the Guild, flooding the module with excess aether. The condescension of so much pure aether would allow observers to properly see on the visual spectrum the aether patterns of what was in the module.

(Not for the first time, Synnove wanted one of those Sharlayan aether-viewers the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and damn near everyone else who came from Sharlayan all had for herself and everyone else in the Guild. Maybe it was time to put in a proposal for a little state-sanctioned smuggling.)

“On three!” Khebi called out. Synnove gave a thumbs up.

“Two! One!”

Khebi threw the switch. Aether sang in the air.

And there was _something_ that was most definitely _not_ carbuncle-shaped in the containment module.

—

“That was amazing!” Khebi said, bouncing up and down as the aether finished dispersing from the module.

Ivar was attached to the top of Synnove’s head, fur standing on end and tails stiff, hissing and spitting. Galette was trying to burrow down into Synnove’s shirt, whimpering. Tyr was trying to burrow up into Synnove’s shirt and had succeeded, yanking the bottom hem where it was tucked into her pants so he could shove his head beneath the fabric and smoosh his face into her stomach. He was also whimpering.

And Synnove herself wore a completely poleaxed expression, clipboard long since dropped to the ground out of numb fingers. Her arms were still upright as if she was holding it, though, and a twitch had developed at the corner of her right eye.

Khebi chattered excitedly as she released Carby, already working through the observed data out loud. Carby jumped to the ground and sat primly at his mistress's feet. He blinked slowly. Ivar hissed louder.

 _‘I need a fucking drink,’_ Synnove thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chaemera wrote a follow up to this, and can be found at his FFXIV blog [HERE](https://aethericgeometry.tumblr.com/post/167304042525/compiler-error)!


	8. Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 7: Broken Leaf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 7, 2017.

Synnove set down the tray on the rickety old table she’s dragged out to the eastward facing balcony, then sat her own self down in the wicker fan chair that normally lived in the reception office on the main floor. She huffed out a sigh of relief; the climb from the first floor up to the top of the east tower involved far too many stairs, and doing it twice with a chair and then an overburdened tray of four breakfasts while stepping around three impatient, whiny brats was especially difficult. This morning, however, it was worth the trouble.

No leves to undertake, no bounties to hunt. No research paper on a deadline, no new ships in the harbor with cargo to assess. No looming threats to Eorzea (Synnove hastily rapped her knuckles against the table), no requests to solve problems that only _she_ could properly handle.

Just herself, her carbuncles, and the quiet of pre-dawn.

She uncovered three of the dishes on the tray and set them out on the table; one was a bowl full of oatmeal, swimming in cream and maple syrup and fresh cut fruit, for Galette, while the other two were plates heaped with scrambled eggs and rashers of bacon (extra eggs with cheese for Tyr, dragon pepper sauce on the eggs and extra bacon for Ivar). They dug in immediately, Galette practically faceplanting into her concoction of sugar masquerading as breakfast. Synnove kept her own plate covered for now, sent a wordless prayer of thanks to the Twelve for the gift that kept on giving that was the Arcanist Guild’s mess hall, and instead turned her attention to the tea set.

Normally, Synnove was a coffee person: bitter and black as her soul, Rereha said once, joking only a little bit. But a morning like this, with wisps of fog still clinging to the spires and waterways of the city, she could savor something else.

The tea in the pot had been steeping since she left the mess, and she poured it now into the delicate porcelain cup she’d snagged from one of the cupboards. The liquor was dark and fragrant, and Synnove took a deep, appreciative breath. She wasn’t a tea connoisseur, couldn’t recognize quality or grade or however it was tea was rated at a glance or a sip like some, but she could appreciate good smells and strong flavors.

A healthy dollop of maple syrup - Galette came by her sugar-obsession honestly, and Aymeric would never convince her of the superiority of birch - and a splash of cream, then a quick stir with a tiny spoon, and her tea was ready. She blew on the hot liquid as she lifted the lid on her breakfast at last, revealing a pile of small, dense waffles, lightly dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with a thick, dark chocolate sauce. She lifted one of the waffles and took a bite, then followed it with a sip of tea.

_Delicious._

Humming contently, Synnove leaned back in her chair with tea and treat in hand, crossed her legs, and watched the sun rise over La Noscea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Broken leaf" is, in fact, a kind of tea grading, and thus I saw an opportunity to indulge in _more food porn._ I like food a lot, okay? Honestly I'm kinda surprised that only this ficlet and _Vuelve a la Vida_ from day three of the challenge were my only food porn fics.
> 
> Also, Synnove's waffles are the Eorzean equivelent of Belgian Liegé waffles: dense and chewy and made with pearl sugar. (Compared to the most common type of waffle in the U.S., which are based off the lighter Brussels waffle recipe.)


	9. Glow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 8: Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 8, 2017.

On some nights, there was comfort in darkness.

The window were tightly shuttered, and not even moonlight was able to sneak into her bedroom. Under her covers, it was a soft, welcoming cocoon of black nothing; she couldn’t even see her fingers in front of her face. Sound was muffled, and if she closed her eyes, Synnove could almost imagine she was floating.

It was a relief, honestly.

It wasn’t the constant explosions caused by magitek or thaumaturges. Not the baleful red light of Dalamud. Not the rage-and-sorrow dirge of aether singing in her mind. Not the overwhelming radiance and violent fury of a sun’s burning heart given wings and claws, not its deafening, echoing roar as it tore the land apart-

A chirp, and the soft pap of a paw against her cheek, and Synnove was dragged back from Carteneau.

She squinted her eyes open and saw the familiar blue-green of Galette’s fur, its glow gentled to something soft and dim, but still present. The carbuncle chirped again, sticking her nose in Synnove’s face, and blinked huge, dark eyes. _Hi, Mommy. Okay now?_

“M’okay, sweetling,” she said, uncurling from her stiff, shaking ball. She reached with her arm, snagged Galette, and pulled the little cuddle bug to her chest.

Galette purred, and rested her head right over Synnove’s heart.

The covers shifted, and the soft topaz glow (and the mattress depressing) signaled Tyr crawling up to take the spot at Synnove back, draping his tails over his mama's legs. An angry little huff and a breath of cool air near her face heralded Ivar’s arrival. He loafed the front of his body on top of her head, yawned, and faceplanted into her hair, already down for the count.

Surrounded by thrumming warmth and the familiar lights of her carbuncles, Synnove snuggled into the cuddle pile, and finally went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some necessary seriousness after fluff and Shenanigans.


	10. Multitasking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 9: Linkpearl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 10, 2017.
> 
> We now return you to your regularly scheduled mad science!

_“Excuse me, Alakhai, do you have a minute?”_

Synnove’s voice was the half-frustrated, half-distracted tone of an arcanist deeply involved in a research problem who had hit a wall and was currently beating her head against it. (Possibly literally.) Alakhai let herself smile, and hummed lightly under her breath, a brief sing-song of rising and falling notes, as she crept down the dock.

_“Thank you,”_ her friend said fervently. _“All right, I’ve been working on increasing the rate of aether coalescence on carbuncle-quality emeralds---”_

The Xaela ducked behind a stack of crates as a patrol passed. She narrowed her eyes; no, the colors they wore were _not_ on the friendly list. That confirmed this was definitely where the pirates were berthing when they snuck into Limsa Lominsa to offload their cargo.

_“---too many new students coming in that we can rely on naturally-coalesced stones any longer, though thankfully we won’t need to worry about doing the same for topazes and rubies for a while yet. Now, on paper the math works out, but in practice the rate of channeled aether gets wildly out of control, to the point the stone cracks---”_

Alakhai snuck up behind a guard, reversing her grip on her dagger and slamming the pommel into his temple. He went boneless without even a breath of surprise, and Alakhai caught him under his arms. She dragged him behind another stack of cargo, then knelt down, leaned over, and knocked on the underside of the dock.

_“---used unaspected crystals as a buffer, did nothing---”_

Other members of the Rogues’ Guild swarmed up onto the top of the quay, and in single file they prowled up the gangplank of a docked merchantman.

_“---even wind-aspected crystals are doing shite, and the explosions are just nasty---”_

Out of the corner of her eye, Alakhai saw V’kebbe knock out a pirate and quickly begin the process of stringing him up. She let Synnove’s ranting wash over her as she and other Upright Thieves found their own targets and did the same; soon a gaggle of strung-up pirates decorated the masts and rigging of the vessel. Off it was now to find the cargo while Jacke marched the captain off to the Admiral, at Her Excellency's personal request.

(She wondered for a half-moment if they'd find a body in the harbor come morning, a musket ball between its eyes.)

As the Rogues cracked open the false bottom in the hold, Alakhai said, _sotto_ so only the 'pearl in her ear could catch her voice, “Have you tried chaining the crystals?”

_“…Come again?”_

Alakhai reached down and hefted up the container of stolen ceruleum handed to her by Perimu, passing it the next rogue in line behind her, and continuing the process as they emptied the smuggler’s hold. Besides ceruleum, they hauled out somnus and milkroot, and collars that only ever were put on slave necks. Alakhai's lip curled into a silent snarl at those, and all the rogues wore disgusted expressions as those were passed down the line. Returning her attention to Synnove, she said, “Chain unaspected with wind. Unaspected, wind, unaspected, wind. Wind keeps the aether steady and pure, the unaspected catch the run off.”

_“…You are brilliant and amazing and I love you. I’ll run the numbers to double check and then rush it down to the research team. Thank you, Alakhai!”_

Alakhai hummed a reply, smiling as the line went quiet, and went back to work.


	11. Re-Calibration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 10: Slap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 23, 2017.
> 
> Yeah, this one stumped for a while. Final verdict: MORE MAD SCIENCE.

“---channeling fire-aspected aether would probably be more efficient, it’s more volatile so it wouldn’t require as many crystals built into the engine block---”

“Synnove.”

“---but _lightning_ would add some really interesting punch during deployment---”

_“Synnove.”_

“---ooooooooh _ice,_ though. _No one_ ever expects ice if there’s no thaumaturge in sight. Powerful, far less volatile than fire and thus far less likely for catastrophic failures to occur, and _devious,_ yes, that would work out nicely---”

_“SYNNOVE.”_

“---ICE _AND_ LIGHTNING. YES, ICE AND LIGHTNING. STABLE, ENOUGH POWER, A _FANTASTIC_ EXPLOSION FOR THE END PRODUCT---”

_**CRACK!** _

“ _Owwwww!_ Thal’s balls, Heron, did you have to put _that_ much momentum into it?! You hit like a behemoth!”

“You were about to start laughing maniacally, which traumatizes the baby arcanists, and no one likes seeing the babies twitchy this early in the semester. I also didn’t want nightmares tonight myself. That mad scientist laugh of yours is swiving _terrifying._ ”

“…That’s fair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing pure dialogue fics, they're so much fun.
> 
> For the record: Synnove's friends, plus her research assistant Halulu, have _written permission_ to do whatever is necessary to knock her out of a research or mad scientist bender, particularly when it looks like she's about to do something traumatizing to those around her (that laugh, explosions, etc.). This includes slapping her and dosing her tea/coffee with a sleep potion.
> 
> Synnove's laugh is especially creepy because it starts surprisingly deep and low-pitched, and then steadily rises in tone and pitch until it's something like a witch's cackle. The carbuncles will also provide further sound effects. It's unsettling.


	12. Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 11: Mercy vs. Justice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 12, 2017.

The dragon has a collar around her neck, a monstrosity of technology and aether, as Allagan as everything else in this crystallized hell beneath Eorzea. Synnove recognizes it, from assisting the Sons of Saint Coinach comb through the records of Syrcus Tower: a neurolink, designed to clamp directly into its subject’s nervous system to control its mind. There is no reason in the dragon’s eyes, just feral madness and despair. Her thoughts haven’t been her own in five thousand years.

They don’t kill her; they put her and her broken siblings down. When she finally lies still, the King of Kings singing a mourning song in the back of her mind, Synnove and Heron and Rereha and Alakhai tear off the collar and drop it into the abyss. They arrange her limbs and wings as best they can from a death rictus to a sleeping coil.

In death, at least, in the middle of her sire’s petrified right hand, Twintania regains her dignity.

–

The raving legatus is another matter. She was twisted long before the Dreadwyrm reached from his prison and made her mind an instrument of his will. Project Meteor merely became a usurpation of Eorzean devastation into primal freedom.

If not for this mad creature, perhaps the Calamity would have never occurred. Or perhaps it would have just happened differently.

The hand that finishes off Nael van Darnus (Nael _deus_ Darnus, whatever the thing calls herself) may not have been Synnove's own, but there is satisfaction and _pleasure_ in seeing her ended, nonetheless. The White Raven is dead. She'll raise a toast to that when her work here is finished.

–

Then there is Phoenix. (She dare not call him anything else, not even in the privacy of her mind. The secret must not spread, must die with herself and Heron and Rereha and Alakhai and Alphinaud and Alisaie too many know it must _not_ be shared.)

Here, on the main bridge of the _Ragnarok_ at the heart of the Coil, under the malice-filled gaze of the regenerating Dreadwyrm, there is nothing but sorrow and solemn necessity.

–

Bahamut is the monster that haunts her sleep, on the nights when the ghosts of Carteneau will not be silenced. He is the living fury of a sun’s beating core, the raging inferno that dwells at the heart of the world, given terrible form and awful purpose. His deafening roar will echo in the recesses of her mind as it heralded Eorzea’s destruction for the rest of her life.

He is the twisted shadow of the sire of the dragons of Meracydia, who listened to his children’s terrified, desperate screams for succor for five thousand years so the Allagans would have a gods be damned _battery_ for their monstrous empire. He is the product of aether and fear and the will of a dying people. And even now, as the machines of Allag hum all around and rebuild his physical vessel, he is not allowed to die.

In the end, there is both relief, and heartache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meh. This is my least favorite fill of the whole challenge, but it was all I could think of for the prompt. Sometimes you have to write crap so you can write better things later.


	13. Reactions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 12: Caste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 12, 2017.
> 
> Featuring Chaemera's A'khebica Ginwa and Carby, and my friend Jai's Keltgeim Eyristerwyn!

While the Arcanist’s Guild had a formal hierarchy delineating responsibilities, skill levels, and, most importantly, pay scales, members could generally be lumped into one of three categories: initiates, middlers, and vets. Exactly what made one which varied depending on whom an individual asked. Some based it purely on seniority, some based it on arcanima proficiency, some based it on number of ships assessed, and so on.

Synnove did it a little differently, and the best way to see it was at breakfast in the Guild mess hall.

The mess was a necessity. First, with ships coming into the harbor at any time of the day or night, assessors had to be available every hour of the day, every day of the year. A central location for caffeine, and a meal or two, was essential, particularly when the rest of the city was asleep.

Second, many of the students and a good number of journeymen and adepts lived at the Gate full time, either in dorms or private suites (or, in the case of half-mad researchers like Synnove, using the couches in their offices as beds and keeping a chest of fresh clothes to change into behind a partition). Especially for students, whose individual stipends could only go so far, the mess was the best way to have a hot meal or get a snack at any time of day. And the researchers liked not having to venture far from their offices when hunger pangs and caffeine withdrawal finally distracted them from theorems and breakthroughs.

(And the third that _no one_ talked about to anyone who did not have full Guild membership was that as the customs house for the city-state, Mealvaan's Gate had access to the best coffees and teas from around the known world. When it came to caffeine, not even the Admiral herself dared to infringe on the privilege of her arcanists to claim first purchase rights. Cafes in Ul’dah and Gridania, and even the rest of Limsa Lominsa, would kill to get their hands on the Gate stock.)

This particular morning, Synnove was a functional enough person to be in the mess at all, Galette snoring while draped around her neck. She sat at one of the many long tables, idly cutting off pieces of a dodo omelette (filled with roasted red peppers, spinach, and aldgoat cheese) with her fork and unceremoniously shoving the food into her mouth as she marked up another arcanist’s draft thesis in red ink. A pot of fragrant, steaming black coffee sat next to her plate, no cup in sight.

Across from her sat Keltgeim, engrossed in an observational astrology paper from Sharlayan, her grilled herring breakfast picked at but mostly ignored. Synnove couldn’t make out what the Sea Wolf was muttering under her breath, but she could have sworn she heard Kelt scoff and say, “Oh, stars say suck my dick, Clotaire.”

Next to them, on the bench on Keltgeim’s side of the table, sat Khebi. She had only just recently stumbled into the mess, still in her nightgown, a plush coeurl under one arm, and Carby carefully steering her around chairs and benches and other barely-awake arcanists. One of the wait staff had dropped off Khebi’s usual breakfast of cold cereal and tea, and Khebi was listing to one side with the spoon sticking from her mouth, looking as if she would nod off again. Carby sat between her and Kelt, passive as always.

Khebi yawned, spoon falling out and into her cereal with a _plop!_ (Kelt absently moved the tea cup out of the way before the utensil could knock it over.) She stretched, blinked herself into a slightly higher level of alertness, then reached _into_ Carby to do her usual morning tinkering of his programming along whatever parameters it was she had decided she needed for the day.

Synnove picked up the coffee pot, took three long pulls of the black ambrosia, set it down, and unabashedly took in the reactions from around the hall.

The initiates who had spotted the action, and had never seen it before, had gone pale as new sailcloth, jaws dropping. Carbuncles were pure aether, but non-arcanists frequently forgot they were not flesh-and-blood beastkin, and seeing little Khebi’s arms _phase through_ Carby up to the elbow or shoulder was… unsettling. To say the least.

The middlers, of course, had seen it before, so they weren’t so much shocked as they were green about the gills. Carbuncles were _pure aether,_ and sticking your hands into that much raw energy was how explosions or mutations or losing a limb could happen if you didn’t know what you were doing. There was a damned good reason arcanists first learned to modify their carbuncles via summoning array.

And the vets, finally, didn’t even bat an eye or turn away from their coffee or tea. First, they had seen it too many times, and the novelty had long ago worn off. Second, they had all stuck their hands into their carbuncles for emergency field re-coding at some point. (Including Synnove, and doing so with a bloodthirsty Ivar to reactivate his grenade function in the middle of the Steps of Faith as Vishap bore down on their position, and then installing the program from scratch into Tyr, was not an experience she was keen to repeat.) Third, they had nearly all stuck their hands into Carby _specifically_ to find whatever missing item of theirs had ended up in the carbuncle’s subspace storage when he ate it.

Speaking of which, while Khebi was distracted, Carby had turned his head and was sniffing at Kelt’s pen. The very nice fountain pen with a subtle enchantment that kept it constantly filled with ink, a gift from someone her friend was still keeping mum about.

Keltgeim saw this time, thankfully, and snatched it away before Carby could eat it for the third time this week. She leaned down so she could look him in the eye, and pointed a finger at him. “No,” she said, firmly.

Carby blinked guilelessly and sat back upright, interest in the pen gone, now that it was out of sight. Kelt eyed him suspiciously for a few moments longer, sticking the pen behind her ear on the side opposite to Carby. She eventually went back to her paper and muttering less than pleasant things about Sharlayan astrologians and their mysticism under her breath.

Synnove snickered, took another chug of coffee, and resumed peer reviewing.


	14. Succor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 13: Wounded Animal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 23, 2017.
> 
> Yep, struggled with this one for a while, and then lo, inspiration came on the challenge catch up day, and smacked me in the head with a frying pan.

“Well, that was anticlimactic.”

The corpse of the enormous blue yabby was still spasming in the last of its death throes. Alakhai was closely examining a broken off piece of its carapace, likely assessing it as a potential crafting material, though the frown on her face didn’t bode well for that potential endeavor. Heron was carefully prying her sword from Kiwa’s left eye, having struck so hard the weapon had become stuck. Tyr, meanwhile, had his paw on Galette’s scruff, holding her place while he cleaned her face, to her unhappy whining. Ivar was still gnawing furiously on one of the creature’s last twitching limbs.

Rereha shrugged as she began collecting her spent arrows. “Four Warriors of Light and three carbuncles versus one elite hunt mark only ranked ‘B’ by Clan Centurio. Not exactly a fair fight,” she said.

“You’d think at this point Billebaut and Leuekin would simply start handing us hunt bills for their ‘A’ and ‘S’ rank marks,” Synnove said dryly.

The lalafell snickered and turned to look back at Synnove, saying as she did so, “The challenge would be a lot…” Her eyes widened to an almost impossibly huge size. “More. Fun?” All of her attention was on something just beyond Synnove’s shoulder.

Synnove felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and heard static crackle in the air. Something was breathing right behind her, and it was _big._ Her friends and her carbuncles were all _staring_  and frozen in place, even as lightning aether began to thicken to an uncomfortable degree on her tongue.

Whatever-it-was-behind-her snorted.

Slowly, Synnove turned around.

Ixion snorted again, almost pointedly so.

She would fervently deny it later, but she made an _“eep”_ sound.

He was much smaller than when he usually manifested, roughly the size of an adamantoise rather than attempting to rival a kaiser behemoth. His massive horn was chipped from constant, regular battles with zealous, glory-seeking adventurers combing the Lochs, but this close - and Synnove had to cross her eyes to focus the horn in her sight - she could actually see spots where damaged spots had regrown. A faint _thrum_  of electricity hung around him, and little crackles of purple static occasionally snapped along his striped coat.

Azeyma’s fan, but his mane looked incredibly fluffy. Synnove’s hands itched to pet it, but she mentally scolded herself; she would probably lose fingers if she tried.

Ixion stared at her a moment longer with baleful, gleaming red eyes. Then he blinked, and shuffled back so his horn was no longer practically resting against her nose, and turned to expose the left side of his body. Two arrows, one with unfamiliar fletching and one snapped close to the head, were embedded in his shoulder.

“Awwww, poor handsome lad,” Synnove cooed. She refrained from pinching herself, even though it was absolutely impossible that this was truly waking reality. “Do you need help?”

Rhalgr’s steed stomped his right foreleg and bobbed his head up and down.

“What the actual swiving _fuck,_ ” Rereha hissed behind her. Synnove flapped a hand at her - _shush!_  - without looking. She could hear Heron starting to laugh and then attempting to stifle it, with little success. Ivar was making angry noises, but was cut off with a sudden yip: Tyr throwing himself on top of his baby brother to keep him from doing something rash. Such a good boy, her Tyr.

Synnove carefully inched over to Ixion’s side. She reached with her left hand, laying it reverently on the great creature’s neck. He eyed her, but didn’t take offense, and so she drew her hand slowly down. She sighed wistfully; from a distance, his coat looked rough and coarse, but in truth it was as silky as that of a Coerthan unicorn.

Upon closer look, neither arrow was as deep as she had feared. Normally she would never dare pull them free without enlarging the wound to more easily slide out the heads, but she did _not_  want to test whether Ixion was intelligent enough to know she was hurting him in order to better render aid. Healing magicks were not her forte, but _Physick_  was potent enough that it should hopefully take care of any infection.

With her right hand, Synnove firmly grasped the shaft of the unbroken arrow as close to his shoulder as she could manage. “All right, love,” she said, sing-song and soothing, “on three. One, two-”

She _yanked,_  and thank the Twelve, the arrow didn’t break.

Ixion neighed loudly, kicking out with his left hind leg, but he subsided quickly, breathing heavily and shaking his neck.

“ _Gooood_  lad,” Synnove crooned, tossing the arrow behind her where it clacked on the stone. That done, she began petting his neck soothingly, standing on tiptoe to reach up to run her hands through his mane - as soft and fluffy as she had imagined! - and scratch his poll. “Such a brave, good lad you are, yes you are!”

He snorted, and leaned into the scratches, whuffing through his nostrils happily.

(Alakhai was making choked noises. Rereha was swearing. And Heron had given up any attempts at subtlety and was flat out belly-laughing. Thankfully, Ixion continued to ignore them.)

Synnove gave him another pat, and dropped back onto her heels. “One more time, handsome,” she said. While the second shaft was broken, there was enough remaining for her to grip it, and even better, the bottom of the head was visible. She wrapped her hand around as much of the arrow as she could and _pulled._

Ixion was better prepared this time, bracing all four hooves and only grunting as the arrow came out. He shook himself again, snorting and stamping, as Synnove threw the bloody thing away. With both hands now empty, the summoner held them over the two wounds in Ixion’s shoulder, the soft green glow of a _Physick_  spell surrounding them. Slowly, the sluggish bleeding stopped entirely, and the skin knit closed.

“There we go,” Synnove said, patting him on the withers. “All done.”

Ixion whickered. He reached his neck around and, mindful of his horn, nuzzled her shoulder. Synnove squeaked in delight, and hurriedly dug around in one of her belt pouches. She made a triumphant sound, and held out her hand, palm up, showing it contained a few candied orange peels. The great creature’s ears pricked visibly in the giant floofy mess of his mane, and he leaned down to daintily lip the treats from her hand. (Galette made a wounded sound somewhere behind her, but her gluttonous eldest child knew better than to get between powerful entities and their snacks.) Synnove giggled as the short whiskers on his muzzle tickled the delicate skin of her fingers.

Finished with his gift, Ixion gave her one last nuzzle, then turned around and ambled away. Once he was a half dozen yalms away, a deafening _**CRACK!**_ of thunder pealed through the air, followed half a moment later by a brilliant levinbolt that lit up the sky. When the bolt cleared, he was gone.

Synnove stood there, hands clasped together, with the biggest smile on her face even as she blinked spots from her vision.

“So,” Rereha said, coming to stand next to her. “How many of your childhood dreams just came true?”

“ _All of them_ ,” Synnove said fervently, smile still in place.

Where Ixion had once stood, in the rough shape of a whistle, were twelve pieces of his horn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aunt Angharad did an excellent job in nurturing traditional Gyr Abanian stories in Synnove. :)


	15. Kiss and Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 14: Wit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 26, 3017.

Rereha sipped her tea, humming appreciatively as she savored the burst of flavors and natural sweetness on her tongue. She made a mental note to come this particular establishment again; she had never had Hannish tea brewed this well by someone who wasn't Hannish themself. It was disloyal of her as a born and bred Ul’dahn, but Limsa Lominsa truly had the best cafes in all of Eorzea.

“So, Synnove,” the bard said, setting down her cup on its matching saucer with a delicate _tink_  of fine ceramic. “How is the Lord Commander in bed?”

If it had been anyone else, save perhaps Heron (her oldest friend) and Alakhai (generally unimpressed by everything that wasn't a knife or a horse), they would have choked on their food, or done a spit-take if drinking, or turned bright red. Synnove, however, was Rereha’s second-oldest friend, having known her over twenty years now. She was _immune_  to the Dunefolk’s particular brand of blunt shamelessness, which was entertaining in and of itself.

The Highlander merely cut off another piece of chocolate torte with her fork, raised it to her mouth, and delicately pulled the morsel off the tines with her teeth, chewing slowly as she stared out over Galadion Bay. She swallowed, set her fork down, and finally made eye contact. “What makes you think I slept with him?” she said.

Rereha snorted and grinned slyly. Synnove wasn't even trying. “The bottle of Bacchus you had in hand and the way you practically threw him over your shoulder during the post-Grand Melee party,” she said. “Also the limp the next morning, the smirk, _and_  the bruises under that neckerchief of yours.”

"I'm surprised you noticed, considering how hungover you were the next day."

"And you should know by now that just because I've been pickling my liver most of the night, doesn't mean I don't notice things, particularly when it relates to my friends getting laid."

Synnove leaned back in her chair, crossing her long legs at the knee. She picked up her coffee mug and took a long, slow sip, staring at Rereha over the rim as she drank. Finally setting it down again, she learned forward and crossed her arms on the table. Rereha matched her, grinning widely as she leaned in. This was going to be _good._

Synnove said, utterly stone-faced, “He helps me achieve thermodynamic equilibrium.”

Rereha felt the smile fall off her face, replaced instead by blank bewilderment. “…What.”

“Thermodynamic equilibrium,” her best friend said, enunciating it slowly and deliberately, as if she was explaining a new concept to one of the baby arcanists at the Gate. A smirk was tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I have cold hands. Aymeric has warm hands. Together, we maintain the ideal temperature for hand-holding.”

A beat of silence. Rereha _stared._

Then, finally: “You are such a fucking bitch.”

Synnove threw back her head and _laughed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inspiration for this fill came from [this post](http://http://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/164539459296/). God bless tag diving when ideas refuse to come forth organically.


	16. Glamour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 15: Doppelganger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 16, 2017.

“How!” the violet sylph wailed as she was trussed up like a holiday dodo. “How could walking ones see through this one’s disguise? This one practiced and practiced and _practiced!_ This one's trick was perfect!”

“Oh, it was excellent,” Rereha said cheerfully, slinging her bow onto her back.

Heron picked the sylph up and tossed her over her shoulder. “No stumbling back into sylph diction,” the Hellsguard said. "And the accent was spot on. I don't know anyone else who can do crisp technical explanations of theoretical arcanima and then slide back into speaking like the bastard lovechild of a Lominsan pirate and a Gyr Abanian mercenary."

“The hip cant was perfect, just the right amount of sassy, 'I don't give a fuck' attitude. And the eyebrow arch, very well done!”

“You used “aetherial coalesence” correctly,” Alakhai added, taking point as the trio and one prisoner began the trek back to Little Solace.

“There was just one teeny tiny, itty-bitty flaw with your presentation,” Rereha said as she walked behind Heron. She held her pointer finger and thumb a hairsbreadth away from each other as she grinned maniacally up at the sulking sylph.

All together, the three Warriors of Light said, “No carbuncles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I was doing Sylph beast tribe dailies when I came up with this one.


	17. Ragging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 16: Ceruleum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 16, 2017.

“Does no one who ever attended the Magitek Academy know how to write a fucking paper?” Synnove’s voice was laced mostly with disgust, but there was an underlying thread anyone who had known her long enough would recognize as her being very grudgingly impressed. In this case, mostly at the sheer horror that was the stack of papers through which she was currently reading.

The Ironworks manufactory in Revenant’s Toll was busy even past midnight, the engineers as bad as the arcanists of Limsa Lominsa in working at all hours of the night and day. Synnove had taken advantage of that, showing up at dawn of the day before, wild-eyed and twitching with a ream of parchment in a death-grip as Tyr carefully steered her around working machinery with his head at her hip. The arcanist had shoved the parchments, each covered front and back in esoteric equations, into Cid’s face and demanded he check her math. Then she left him sputtering and trying to juggle the parchments and his coffee without dropping either and wandered into one of the workshops, curling up the top of a giant prototype airship engine stored inside, and had passed out for most of the day under a pile of carbuncles.

She didn't drag herself back to consciousness until early evening, showing up in the manufactory mess with hair in a disarray, eyes like a raccoon, and aggressively snuggling a purring Ivar; Tyr wandered off to beg scritches from Jesse, while Galette immediately beelined over to Biggs so she could sit on his shoulders and be The Tallest. Once Synnove had acquired a giant mug of caffeinated ambrosia and flopped onto the bench across from him, Cid had given her back her perfect equations, now covered in red ink (because he _could_ ) and question marks mixed with exclamation points and statements of, _“You’re bloody mad, woman”_ and _“WHAT,”_ the latter frequently underlined multiple times. Then he had shoved a giant roll of his own blueprints into her hands with the statement of, “If you’re going to drink my coffee, make yourself useful and check _these_ numbers.”

Synnove had done so with a disdainful sniff, covering the equally perfect blueprints in similar scathing remarks and the same red ink, and then moved on to an engineering paper Cid had been writing when not shoulder-deep in magitek. Eventually, in between pithy comments and loudly questioning one another's calculations, they had migrated from the mess to the workshops. Which led to the scene now: Synnove sitting cross-legged on the same engine she’d slept on, Ivar in her lap and thrumming contently, while Cid crawled around in the engine’s guts.

“That’s because Garleans don’t have peers, so there’s no such thing as peer review,” Cid said, voice echoing out of where the fuel pump would eventually go. “And definitely not from barbaric Ala Mhigans.”

“Cid, honey, let me put it this way: as much as it physically pains to say it at all, _Nero_ writes research papers better than you.”

The Garlean popped his head out from the engine, expression outraged. “You take that back!”

The Highlander raised her eyebrows at him as Ivar snickered, the ruby carbuncle peering over his mother’s legs to make _sure_ Cid knew he was laughing at him. “The journals are old,” Synnove said, enunciating carefully, “because we had to get them through Radz-at-Han, and gods only know how long it takes them to get anything worthwhile out of Garlemald. And while the quality of his academic writing is highly suspect, as it is with all engineers-”

“Says the woman who’d be mistaken for one of Garlemald’s _finest_ mad scientists when she’s been without coffee for an hour.”

“-shut your mouth, Garlond, I’ve seen your drunken engineering blueprints, Nael van Darnus _wished_ to be half as terrifying as you-”

“Two words, Greywolfe: Aetherocharged. Miasma. That part of the Tangle still hasn’t grown back, by the way.”

“-and to get back to the _point,_ while the reading of any scientific journal out of Garlemald is a masochistic exercise because _holy gods_ none of you Garleans know what the fuck you’re doing in academia, Nero’s were marginally _better_ because he at least attempted citations and if you ever tell him I said that I will throw you into Sohm Al’s burning heart and laugh.”

That was one of Synnove’s tamer threats, and honestly it wasn't worth the headache of her getting creative in retaliation to respond to it. Instead, Cid grimaced and said, “Do you think I’d _ever_ give him a reason to preen and be smug about something?”

“…Point. Still, Cid, your attempts at academia are atrocious. I will ghost write your shitty papers for you, though! Special discount: only a thousand gil a page.”

Cid threw his wrench at her. Synnove caught it and threw it back with a cackle. The engineer snagged it out of the air and ducked back into the engine with a muttered curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _really_ enjoy sassy/salty friendships. :D


	18. Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 17: Fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 18, 2017.

Synnove had been a nervous wreck all week.

She’d sent her application two months ago: formal letter of introduction and intent, glowing recommendations from her tutors, sets of highly advanced geometric, differential, and integral equations solved in her most careful penmanship, and two of her best theoretical papers - one mathematical, one arcanima - written and polished and edited over the course of months before she and her tutors were satisfied. The giant stack of papers had been carefully stored in a special carrying case, wrapped and sealed in waxed leather, addressed in special no-run ink, and delivered to the Ul’dahn postmaster with nervous reverence. Heron and Rereha had accompanied her that day, smiling hugely as she paid the postage, and then immediately whisked her off to their favorite cafe where she soundlessly screamed into her tea in between being stuffed with dense cakes and flaky pastries by her best friends.

This was the earliest point of time she could expect to receive a reply, and it could even be longer, depending on the workload at the Guild and the weather in the Straits of Merlthor and bandits along the roads and-

After a week of pacing the new manor (one of Mother’s _upgrades_ with yet another positive change in fortunes for the Greene Shipping Cooperative, and unnecessary in Synnove's opinion; the previous house had been echoing, _this_ place was downright cavernous), anxiously checking each delivery, and constant dashing off to the post office, Aunt Angharad had told her to, “Get out of the house and don’t come back until sunset, wear yourself out before you drive us spare!”

(“Us” being Aunt Angharad, the staff, and Rereha and Heron when they visited, of course. Mother and Faramund were gone before dawn to the Cooperative offices and stayed late, and Father and Eydis were the same with the salle and weapons lessons for the children of the Ul’dahn elite. Not that Synnove had bothered to tell them what she’d done, anyway.

Bitter? A little, still, yes. But it was much easier to begin with to not waste effort on them.)

So Synnove spent the day rambling around Ul’dah. She visited the markets and stopped by cafes for coffee and snacks, nibbling at her favorite treats with half-hearted appetite and slurping down tea out of rote habit. She climbed the long stairs to the top of the city’s wide walls, letting the exertion and burn in her calves distract her, to people watch along the Greater Promenade and stare out across Thanalan, westward, imagining the Straits of Merlthor, and the Rhotano Sea, and Vylbrand beyond.

At sunset, as ordered, Synnove returned home. She came in through the back, near the kitchens, stomping out of her boots and setting them next to the door before shoving her feet into her house slippers and padding inside. The kitchen was warm and smelled of roasting vegetables and chicken; oddly, Aunt Angharad stood alone at the cutting board, no sign of her two sous-chefs in sight. She was humming an old Ala Mhigan tune, one Synnove vaguely recognized as an invocation for strength and luck for family.

And then, in a carefully cleared spot among the clutter of the main work table, almost directly in front of the door from the courtyard so that it could not be missed, she saw the envelope.

Synnove froze.

It was a sturdy envelope, carefully treated and folded waxed leather to ensure its contents would not be damaged. Her name was written on it in an elegant hand, she could see, and the upper right corner was stamped with the official postage of the Thalassocracy of Limsa Lominsa.

She walked on legs that suddenly felt _very_ weak-kneed, to stand next to the table. She stared at it for a moment longer, before reaching with shaking fingers to pick it up and turn it over.

The huge seal in red wax on the back was that of the Arcanist’s Guild at Mealvaan’s Gate.

Mouth dry and a lump in her throat, Synnove worked her thumbnail under the seal and popped the envelope open. She wiggled out a set of neatly folded papers, and damn near dropped the lot as she reverently unfolded them, her hands shook so badly.

She read.

When she looked up at last, Aunt Angharad was staring at her, vibrating in excitement. “Well?” she said.

There were tears streaming down her cheeks, but Synnove’s smile was huge and brilliant as she screamed, _**“I’M GOING TO BE AN ARCANIST!”**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teenage!not-so-tiny!Synnove is teenaged and not so tiny, and also precious. :D
> 
> Also I have some very extensive headcanons for a tiered system of tuition for the Arcanist's Guild; some of the details are in [this post](http://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/167630124406/) on my tumblr, for the curious,


	19. Academic Debate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 18: Self-control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 19, 2017.

Rereha heard the shouting on her way to the Garlond Ironworks’ temporary command center in Rhalgr’s Reach, the two angry voices echoing through the rough stone hallways. The bard paused, thoughtful, then turned smartly on her heel and headed back toward the sutler encampment. Ten minutes later, she returned to her original path, but moving at a quick trot rather than her earlier leisurely amble, a large bowl of popped millioncorn kernels tossed with melted butter and salt in her hands. She waved hello to Biggs and Wedge as they scurried past (trying to clear the blast radius - smart men), kicked the door to the workshop open, and immediately beelined to where Cid was sitting with a shite-eating grin on his face. She set the bowl next on the bench next to him, and hopped up herself on the other side.

The bard reached into the bowl for a handful of popcorn, and shoved it into her mouth as she made herself comfortable. She said as she chewed, “You have no intention of stopping them, do you?”

Cid leaned back against the wall and popped a kernel into his mouth. “Absolutely not.”

“Good man.”

Synnove and Nero were in yet another shouting match, completely ignoring personal space as they yelled into the other’s face; Nero was trying to loom menacingly, which would have worked on almost anyone else, except Synnove was only a scant few inches shorter than the Garlean and had broader shoulders to boot, and could and _had_ thrown him over her shoulder during one truly memorable prior argument. The only reason this one hadn’t turned into a full on knockdown, drag-out brawl was either because they were surrounded by very delicate equipment or Nero hadn’t yet caused Synnove’s temper to finally snap. More than likely it was the latter; she had certainly never let something as inconvenient as _location_ stop her on previous occasions. For example, even running on four days of no sleep and constant near panic attacks, she hadn’t hesitated to attempt to beat him bloody when he’d shown up at the Lotus Stand back when they first were dealing with the issue of Shinryu.

(Rereha was still trying to figure out how the hell Nero had gotten into Gridania in the first place without drawing the attention of the Wood Wailers and Serpent soldiers constantly on patrol. It was one of the few times she had ever seen Kan-E-Senna lose her serene demeanor and actually look truly _annoyed,_ realizing a Garlean officer had entered _her_ city.)

Most of the argument right now was going over her head, for all that she was enjoying the yelling and mutual loathing. This was a level of theoretical aetherophysics _waaaaay_  beyond her experience.

“--- _CHANNELING A SUFFICIENT QUANTITY OF AETHER INTO THE YAWN_ \---”

“--- _YOU BLOODY NITWIT THE INTERACTION WITH ANTI-PARTICLES WOULD KILL US ALL AND TAKE THE REST OF EORZEA WITH US_ \---”

“--- _AND IF YOU WOULD LET ME FINISH EXPLAINING HOW TO MATCH CHARGES THE PROBLEM WOULD BE AVOIDED ENTIRELY YOU INSUFFERABLE ALA MHIGAN BARBARIAN_ \---”

Rereha stuffed another handful of popcorn into her mouth and chewed happily. Cid started giggling under his breath, and there was no mistaking the sound, it was  _absolutely_  a giggle. Honestly, they needed to start selling tickets and concessions for these rows, they could make so much gil.

It went on like that for a while longer, changing topics at least three times that Rereha could tell, as the amount of popcorn steadily decreased, until:

“--- _THE PROPER APPLICATION OF CARBUNCLE-QUALITY GEMSTONES WOULD BE AN EXCELLENT POWER SOURCE_ \---”

“--- _ALL WE WOULD GET WOULD BE AN ARMY OF THOSE RIDICULOUS PETS OF YOURS_ \---”

Synnove reared back, an ugly snarl on her face. Rereha gasped (only partially out of horror, but mostly of unrestrained "here we go!" delight). Cid nearly choked on a kernel. On top of one of the diagnostic machines, where they had been enjoying the show, Galette and Ivar screeched angrily. Tyr, in the space beneath the same machine, growled, the sound shaking every piece of tech in the room.

All of that happened in the same instant Nero realized he had seriously misstepped.

He had just enough time for his eyes to widen in shock before Synnove roared a war cry and let fly her right hook.

Cid coughed as he dug out a chronometer from one of his many pockets and checked the time. “New record,” he said, pounding on his chest with his fist. “Thirty minutes before the first punch was thrown.”

Rereha ate the last of the popcorn as Nero stumbled back, clutching his nose and managing to dodge the lunge Synnove made for his throat. Ivar was carby-cackling, egging his mama on, while Galette banged her front paws against the machine and interspersed her chiming chitters with the hair-raising _“ehehehehehe!”_ giggles that originated from her Garuda-egi subprogram. Tyr sighed heavily and dragged himself out of his cozy nap spot, making his way to mama to sit on her until she calmed down, because, as always, he was the only adult in the room.

Synnove and Nero still hadn’t stopped yelling at each other, even after they toppled over onto the floor and Nero had a foot buried in Synnove's stomach to keep her from clawing any closer to his neck. Rereha let herself be impressed with the former tribune as she sucked her fingers clean of butter and salt and Cid laughed next to her. Being articulate with a bloody nose while a very angry Highlander was trying to strangle you with her bare hands was difficult.

...Not that she had any experience with that, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nero deeply amuses me, but that doesn't mean I don't think he shouldn't be punched in the face.


	20. Ishgardian Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 19: Battle of Wills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 19, 2017.

Aymeric crept back into his home office, carrying a three-branched candelabrum in one hand and a cup of freshly made tea in the other. He closed the door with his elbow, wincing when the _click_  of the latch echoed loudly. After a moment of waiting and no indication the sound had disturbed the rest of anyone else in the manor, however, he breathed a quiet sigh, and walked to his desk, setting down tea and candelabrum both before dropping into his chair.

His papers, quill, and ink pot were exactly as he’d left them before Synnove had dragged him off to bed. By all rights, he should still be _in_  bed, but his mind had not quieted, instead constantly going over the newest piece of proposed legislation over which Parliament was turning itself into knots. As the clock in the foyer of Borel Manor had chimed a bell past midnight, he had given up trying to sleep, instead carefully dislodging himself from beneath a pile of summoner and carbuncles. He had then thrown on a soft shirt and breeches he only ever wore at home, and tiptoed out of his room and down to the kitchen. The soothing rhythm of preparing a proper cup of Ishgardian tea--warming the milk, steeping and then straining the leaves, adding a healthy dose of birch sugar rather than the traditional maple--had done little to settle his mind as he had hoped, and so off it had been to his office.

Aymeric sighed heavily, eyeing the parchment before him with annoyance. The sooner his traitorous thoughts were quieted, the sooner he could crawl under the covers next to Synnove again. He picked up his quill to resume making notations over his copy of the bill, and reached for the handle of his mug of tea.

“Myaaaaa~!”

Aymeric yelped, nearly sloshing tea over his hand, and looked down to meet the alert gaze of Galette. He briefly glanced up at the door to his office--still firmly latched--before returning his attention to the emerald carbuncle sitting primly next to his chair.

“You are not allowed to bend physics at your whim, little miss,” he said.

Galette flicked her ears at him and made a trilling, exasperated sounding chuffing noise, waving a front paw dismissively as if she was saying, _Mama’s not here, so I don’t care._

She probably was, truth be told. Synnove’s carbuncles were frighteningly intelligent, and didn't need Spoken vocal chords to get their points across. Nor did they give a wit to follow their summoner's standing order to "obey the laws of physics, _please,_ oh merciful gods please" when she wasn't in sight.

He shook his head ruefully and brought himself back to the present. “Can I help you, Galette?”

The emerald carbuncle twitched her nose and nimbly leaped onto his desk. She sat, settling her tails around her demurely as a countess with her skirts and cocking her head to the side as she regarded him. A slow blink, and she glanced pointedly at his tea, and then looked back to him.

Aymeric grasped his mug with his left hand and pulled it close to his chest. “ _No,_ ” he said. “I’ve quite learned my lesson about underestimating you after that showing at Porta Praetoria, imp.”

Galette shuffled over so she was sitting dead center on his desk, directly in front of him, front paws resting on his paperwork. In another blink, she went from prim to pleading, opening her dark eyes _wide_  so they seemed to tremble in the candlelight. She made a soft, questioning little, “ _Myaaaa?_ ”

He felt his heart start to melt, but he shored his mental defenses and instead made his expression stern and unimpressed. Not quite as good as Synnove's stoic mask of indifference, but then most of his practice came from interacting with clergymen, nobles, and Temple Knight recruits, not fluffy familiars who had learned to weaponize the fact that they were adorable.  “No,” he reiterated forcefully, “I am not giving you my tea.”

Galette stared at him. Aymeric stared back.

Gently, she reached out her paw and set it, soft as a feather, on his right hand. “Myaa?” she said. Somehow, her eyes had become even larger and more trembling.

Aymeric felt his resolve begin to waver.

That, of course, was when the door slammed open, causing man and carbuncle both to jump. Standing on the threshold was a familiar sleep-rumbled, grumpy Highlander. She squinted at them, and said in a hoarse, unamused voice, “What is going on here?”

He and Galette exchanged guilty looks.

“Nothing?”

“Mya?”

Synnove grunted and stomped barefoot into the office, grumbling inaudibly under her breath. She swept Galette up under her arm when she was in reach, cocking her hip to the side to better balance herself as she did, and ignoring the carbuncle’s unhappy whine. The summoner looked at the papers on his desk, and then lifted her eyes to pin him with a baleful stare and deep frown.

Aymeric smiled, his chest tightening in that warm, familiar way it always did when he looked into her too-green eyes, even unhappy with him as they were at the moment. He drained his tea in three hurried gulps (Galette's whining increased before she subsided into a defeated sulk) and set down his now empty cup. “Realizing the error of my ways,” he said as he stood up, wrapping an arm around Synnove’s waist and dropping a kiss onto her mussed hair. Galette squawked between them. “And thus going back to bed.”

His beloved made a pleased noise in the back of her throat and patted his chest in approval. He leaned over and blew out the candles, and together they left his office as Synnove snuggled into his side.

As he closed the door behind them, however, she said, “Tyr’s still sleeping on you for the rest of the night.”

Aymeric sighed. Really, he deserved that.


	21. Anonymity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 20: Blending in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 20, 2017.

Take away the distinctive shining gold-and-sapphire armor, and Aymeric easily passed for one of the many adventurers walking the streets and docks of Limsa Lominsa. Not even Naegling, hanging from his swordbelt, drew more than the occasional glance, and then they were primarily from Yellowjackets keeping an eye on any armed individual within city limits. The citizens of the Eorzean city-states had become quite inured to the fantastical-looking weapons that adventurers collected on their varied travels, and a blue greatsword was not something that warranted a closer look any longer.

Of course, it wasn’t  _Naegling_  that caught the eye of many Lominsan ladies and quite a few Lominsan gentlemen. Synnove would know: she had been the one to dig out the black leather breeches from Aymeric's travel pack and throw them at him that morning as they had dressed for the day. And the view when he wore them was utterly  _delightful._

She smiled like the coeurl that had gotten the cream  _and_  the canary. And the occasional jealous glare she received from covetous admirers merely put a spring in her step. Let them look and glower; _she_ was the one walking arm-in-arm through the Octant with the most handsome man in Eorzea, the one who enjoyed the pleasure of his company and was the center of his attention, and she knew for a swiving fact that would not be changing any time soon.

“Sweetling, if you were any more satisfied with yourself, you’d be mistaken for an Ul’dahn merchant-princess,” the man in question said dryly.

Synnove turned her head and grinned up at Aymeric, utterly unrepentant. “While depending on who you ask, that’s actually _true,_ ” she said, poking him in the arm, “that’s still not dire enough a threat to get me to stop being smug.”

Aymeric laughed and nuzzled her temple, causing her to giggle in turn. “Incorrigible brat,” he said fondly. He disengaged his arm from hers, but only so he could wrap it around her waist instead.

A low _grooooowl_  came from the vicinity of Synnove’s feet.

“ _Ivar._ ”

The ruby carbuncle muttered, but subsided. Galette giggled next to him. Tyr sighed.

Aymeric didn’t bat an eye at her firebug's behavior; Ivar wasn’t happy when _anyone_  laid hands on his mama’s person. Synnove counted it at least two dozen points in Aymeric’s favor that he had never taken the carbuncle's animosity personally, thank the Twelve. That Ivar had never _actually_ set him on fire despite huffing and puffing and snorting smoke at his most incensed certainly helped matters.

“Did you have anything particular in mind for today’s agenda after breakfast?” Aymeric said.

Synnove leaned into his side, draping her own arm around him and hooking her thumb into his belt as they began the climb to the Upper Decks. “Well, we could always check Maelstrom Command for any new hunt marks, if you’re in the mood for more traditional adventuring and bounty hunting,” she said. “But one of the local troupes is supposed to be staging a few plays at the Anchor Yard today. Classic Lominsan stories, with dastardly pirates, legendary treasure, swooning maidens, shipwrecks and Sahagin, to name just a few.”

Aymeric’s laugh rumbled through her pleasantly. “That sounds like a great deal of fun,” he said. “Pirates and treasure and maidens and shipwrecks it is, then.”

Synnove laughed herself, wrapping both arms around him as best she could and squeezing him tightly in a hug that Aymeric happily returned. Another lazy day with her beloved, carbuncles swarming at her feet, no problems to solve or dangers to fight. For the moment, she could just be Synnove, not the Warrior of Light, and what could be more perfect than that?


	22. Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 21: Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 21, 2017.

“I am very disappointed in you.”

Galette scuffed her paws on the stairs and refused to make eye contact with Mommy as they walked up the tower to Mommy's office. 

“It’s one thing to prank a member of the Guild. It’s _quite_  another to call down a localized hurricane on a Maelstrom First Commander and throw him into the harbor!”

The carbuncle muttered unhappily as they entered the office, Mommy shutting the door behind them. She sat down on the rug next to the couch, staring down at her paws and sulking as Mommy moved around the room. First Commander Broenaentsyn was _mean._  He yelled, and he glared, and he stomped, and he made the baby arcanists and more than a few of the senior assessors cry, but he always did it where Acting Guildmistress Thubyrgeim or another Maelstrom commander couldn’t see, and he got away with scaring whomever he wished. She had seen him yelling at Y’nomu, and the little kitten had been so terrified Galette couldn’t stand it any longer. A _reckoning_  would be had! She was not sorry, not at all!

Galette finally looked up at Mommy when she came to stand in front of her, already beginning to chitter angrily, and stopped in surprise.

Mommy did not look angry at all. Mommy was _smiling._  And Mommy was carrying a plate with a _enormous_  slice of chocolate cake on it.

~~( _Mommy had been hiding cake in her office how could she._ )~~

“Nya?”

Mommy knelt down and set the plate in front of her. “That was for the benefit of anyone listening in who shouldn’t be,” she said, voice pitched low so it wouldn't echo through the office and the rest of the tower, unlike her earlier reprimands. “Just in case. I am very proud of you, Galette, especially since it drew the attention of Vice Marshal Rhotsthalwyn, and she _very_  much wanted to know why Y’nomu was crying so hard.”

Galette pricked her ears, nose and tails twitching excitedly. She'd done well? Mommy wasn't mad? _Was that cake hers?!_

Mommy winked. “Enjoy your reward, little lovely.”

Galette trilled delightedly, and promptly shoved her face into the cake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Egi subprogramming, yo. If the carby's emotional state lines up with the base primal's, it, uh, gets especially influential.


	23. Waking Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 22: Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 22, 2017.

It was easy to forget that behind the customs work, the carbuncles, the mathematics, and the strategic and tactical training, that arcanists specialized in incredibly dangerous magick. Conjurers wielded wind and water and stone. Thaumaturges called fire and ice and lightning.

Arcanists? Arcanists manipulated unaspected aether and weaponized _disease_ and _entropy._

It made them uniquely suited to studying the research left behind by both the XIVth and XIIth Legions.

The Black Rose had been the tip of the iceberg, and Synnove grimaced in remembrance. While epidemiology was not her specialty, she was one of the best number-crunchers in Mealvaan’s Gate, and as she’d been the one to assist in finding the canisters of the vile stuff, she didn’t need to be granted higher security clearance to be brought into the project. Then the joint Alliance-Resistance forces uncovered old research notes in storage in Castellum Velodyna for the project, and…

Well, Synnove might not have been an epidemiology expert, but Halulu _was,_ and her green skin had turned grey so quickly that Synnove had thought her assistant would be sick. Synnove had seen the after effects in Bittermill, but the notes detailed the process from its inception: pipe dream theory to initial calculations to awful first experiments. And the Garleans had planned on using it _en masse_ at one point.

The artificial Echo project was just as bad. Synnove knew what aether-drain felt like; battles such as those with the Ultima Weapon, Thordan, Nidhogg, and Shinryu, which pushed her to drain her personal aether reserves to the point of her vision beginning to grey out, and blood to trickle from her nose and eyes, had left her exhausted to the point of sickness for days after, requiring up to a fortnight or more of food and sleep to recover in full. These… machines that drained the very _soul_ from a person were, well.

Synnove needed a word stronger than “abomination.”

And that so many people were necessary to empower just _one_ individual made it all the worse, because she could easily imagine the Garleans reaping their conquered lands for the living batteries necessary to create one pure-blooded Garlean capable of wielding magick. Towns and villages left empty ghosts, whole beast tribes erased from existence. Aulus mal Asina had been an _evil_ man, and Synnove did not use that word lightly.

And these were just two of the worst projects the Arcanists’ Guild was poring through for Maelstrom Command. The reports the Resistance were uncovering as they combed through the Palace of other experiments were equally disturbing. Weapons development, enhancement projects, theories for breeding new plagues that would target barbarian populations while leaving the Garleans untouched…

All of it needed to be studied and cataloged, no matter how sick or enraged or shaken the arcanists doing the work became. Gods only knew how much of what had been discovered was theoretical rather than practical. They had to know how it all worked, in case they ever needed a counter or a cure.

Synnove knew, intellectually, that Garleans were not inherently villains. She counted Cid and Lucia as close friends, and they were two of the kindest, most honorable people she’d ever met. Gaius van Baelsar had been honorable, too, in his own twisted way, and even _Nero_ wasn’t entirely awful (although that wouldn’t stop her strangling him the next time his ego puffed up too much). A defector served as one of the Elder Seedseer’s personal bodyguards, and even more lived peacefully throughout Eorzea or served in the Grand Companies. And it wasn’t as if Eorzeans didn’t commit evil acts themselves: there was Archbishop Thordan, Ilberd, Shanga Meshanga, Doesmaga, the entire damn Illuminati, to name but a few. She knew, she _knew,_ Garleans were people, with an inherent capacity for good and kindness and love as much as they had it for cruelty and vileness.

But then she looked at the Black Rose papers. Calculated another line of Aulus mal Asina’s revolting research. Recalled the sullen boredom and the mad gleam in Zenos’s eyes. Saw the chain of command from the scheming scientists--Nero and his rhapsodic waxing of the Ultima Weapon among them--of the XIVth Legion up to the Black Wolf himself. Remembered Dalamud falling from the sky, on Nael van Darnus’s order, with Emperor Solus zos Galvus’s approval.

Some days, the only thing Synnove knew was that the Empire of Garlemald was the dreaded nightmare of herself and countless others for very good reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a heads up, I will not be posting tomorrow. I'm seeing _The Last Jedi_ and will be screaming (joy? rage? dunno yet), and also have to wrap everything and other holiday shenanigans. Updates will resume Sunday!


	24. Breakfast Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 24: Standing in Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 24, 2017.

“This had better be worth it, Rereha,” Synnove grumbled as they shuffled forward. The sun still had not risen over the Goblet, but the line snaked out of the cafe, off the plot entirely, and wrapped around a corner further down the path. They were nearly all adventures, save for one or two merchants' children from Ul'dah proper, and a few liveried servants; most were bleary-eyed and yawning.

Grand openings. She _hated_ grand openings. Lines were always too long no matter how many hours before opening you showed up. Heron and Alakhai had managed to beg off with the convenient excuse of taking a short-term guard contract in Kugane, the traitors.

“The owner and chef is Bismarck-trained,” her best friend said, _far_ too perky and alert for this time of morning. “Did apprenticeships with Gridanian _and_ Hannish patisseries. It’ll be good.”

“That’s what you said about that last dive we tried in Limsa Lominsa. I had food poisoning for a _week._ ”

“Which I owned up to! I have learned my lesson to never take culinary advice from pirates ever again. _This_ was a recommendation from Momodi!”

"Fucking hate you."

Rereha reached up and patted her thigh. "Love you, too, Syn."

Synnove grumbled, but it wasn’t worth the effort to keep arguing.

At some point, Synnove just let herself doze, only half-aware of the world around her. Tugs on her belt from Rereha let her know when to shuffle forward a step or two. She absently noted when her footing went from the familiar cobblestone of the main streets of the Goblet to smooth, flat riverstone used as a walkway. It wasn't until riverstone turned to polished hardwood that Synnove blinked her eyes open.

The interior was all warm colors and cozy nooks with overstuffed benches and small tables; all of them were filled, and the sound of excited chattering washed over her. The smells were incredible: fresh-baked pastries of all sorts (her nose picked up rolanberry and apple; and was that a spinach-and-cheese croissant that wafted by on a waitress's tray?), assorted teas (mint was especially popular with the Ul'dahn crowd, but the hardier breakfast teas favored in Gridania were making a good showing this morning), and _coffee._ Synnove picked out the local roast, but she also recognized her favorite: a dark, rich blend with beans that came from a small province in northern Thavnair. She was mildly impressed, and wondered just who in Radz-at-Han the owner had apprenticed with to be able to get her hands on _that_ particular coffee. The Gate always claimed first purchase rights on it and bought out the whole stock whenever it came into port, so the owner had to buy it directly.

"Shut up, Rere."

"I didn't say anything!"

"I can hear you thinking it."

Rereha snickered.

The line took them by the pastry case. Behind the clear glass was a veritable feast: scones and muffins of all flavors, brioche, cinnamon rolls oozing with a sweetened cream cheese glaze. There were, indeed, spinach-and-cheese croissants, along with ham-and-cheese and and meat pies and quiches for the savory end of the scale. Sweets dominated, however; there were braided pastries filled with rolanberry and sweetened cheese, strudels of all sorts, and two types of baklava (Eorzean-style, with almonds and walnuts, and traditional Hannish, with pistachios). Never mind the cakes and bagels and oh, dear Twelve, the _doughnuts._

And she hadn't even glanced at their full breakfast menu. Synnove was extra glad that she had had the forethought to _not_ bring Galette with her this morning.

They finally made it to the register. Rereha--using the step ladder built into the counter for lalafell customers to more easily interact with the cashier--ordered a citrusy black tea with a dash each of cream and sugar, and a stuffed-to-bursting apple strudel. The bard licked her lips lasciviously as she was handed her pastry, wrapped in a compostable waxed paper. Synnove got herself a large coffee of the Hannish roast--"Black as your soul," Rereha cackled, nimbly dodging the kick her best friend aimed her way--and, after a moment's hesitation, one each of the baklava. They both dropped their change, plus extra, into the near-to-overflowing tip jar, and shuffled down to the end of the counter where they picked up their drinks, served in similar compostable cups as the pastry wraps, popular in Gridania.

They quickly retreated from the cafe, bounty in hand, and darted out onto the street. Roughly a block away, they found a small alcove they could duck into out of the way of other pedestrians, and slowly ate their breakfast as sunlight finally began streaming through the ward. Both of them made appreciative noises they nibbled their treats and sipped their drinks.

“All right,” Synnove said, sucking her fingers clean of honey, “that’s probably the second-best baklava I’ve ever had. Aunt Angharad’s beats everyone, of course.”

“Naturally,” Rereha said, then drained the last of her tea. She sighed contently. “Seconds?”

“Seconds.”

"Grab a table?"

"Grab a table."

They went to rejoin the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So edits made this the official Third food porn ficlet of the collection. Sorry not sorry.


	25. Assessments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 25: Obsolete

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 25, 2017.

Aymeric rubbed his tired eyes as he walked through the Greater Library of the Vault, fighting back a yawn. He had spent the majority of the day deep in the stacks, going through pre-Calamity trade records in preparation for a related matter coming to the Parliamentary floor for discussion and debate in a few days. It was important, especially since he wouldd be mediating the children masquerading as grown men in the House of Lords (the Speaker for the House of Commons had similar headaches herding the coeurls there, but _he_ did not have to deal with a thousand years of carefully cultivated and maintained feuds and grudges), but he would be a liar if he claimed it was fascinating work.

At least it had meant he had not been bothered every half a moment as he would have had he spent the day in his office at home or in the Congregation.

He lost the fight against exhaustion, covering his mouth with a hand and yawning so hard he felt a muscle in his jaw cramp in protest. _‘And this is why the other Alliance leaders have a retinue of aides with them at all times,’_ he thought as he passed through the mathematics and sciences section, briefly noting a spot of deepwood green and shining topaz out of the corner of his eye. _‘_ They _are the ones keeping track of all the minutiae necessary to ensure the cities run smoothly. Count Edmont and Lucia are, as always, correct; I need to begin delegating at least the minor tasks, else I’ll go mad before the year is out.’_

He was nearly to the reference desk at the library’s entrance, when he halted mid-stride, blinking in surprise as his mind finally finished processing the colors he had seen on his way out.

_‘Wait.’_

He turned on his heel and walked back to the mathematics and sciences section. He glanced back and forth between the rows, not pausing until- there!

 _‘Found you,’_ he thought fondly.

There was no mistaking that particular form sitting hunched on top of a ladder, forehead in hand as she turned the pages of a book in her lap. The familiar archaeoskin jacket in deepwood green had returned to her wardrobe, it seemed, paired with black pants and tall black thighboots; the primary difference with her appearance now from when she had stayed in Ishgard was that her short, shaggy brown hair had grown out again. However, rather than keep it loose with a small braid to keep stray hairs from flying into her face, as it had been when he had first met her, she had pulled into a traditional Ala Mhigan style, swept back and beaded. The dyed green ends she so adored were still in place, though, practically glowing against the silver beads. Familiar and not, all at once, although with the whole ensemble combined with the sheepdog-sized carbuncle sitting patiently at the ladder’s base, he _should_ have noticed her right away.

Aymeric smiled as he walked down the row, briefly glancing at the titles as he passed. Arcanima, of course. These were old tomes, however, and only one or two were ones he had seen grace the shelves of Synnove’s office in Mealvaan’s Gate.

He did not attempt to step softly, as it was always a poor idea to sneak up on any warrior, never mind a Warrior of Light, but apparently Synnove was deeply enough engrossed in her text to not register his approach. Tyr, however, looked over as soon as he noticed the loud clacking of boot heels on stone floor coming closer to his mistress. He perked his ears up and came to meet Aymeric, shoving his face into the elezen’s hands.

“Maow!” the topaz carbuncle said, deep and echoing like a brass bell, only a little bone-rattling.

Aymeric laughed softly and obliging scratched behind his ears. Tyr thrummed happily, enjoying the attention for a few moments, before he disengaged and went back to Synnove. He braced himself on the rungs of the ladder and reached up with his paw to tap her foot, chirruping quietly.

“Hmm? Whazzit, honey?” Synnove said, voice distant and distracted. She did not look up as she turned the page.

Tyr sat back on his haunches and said, “ _Maow!_ ”

Aymeric hadn’t the faintest idea of what Tyr had said, but Synnove most certainly did, as her head jerked up in surprise. (He winced sympathetically; when she had straightened, her spine had made an awful _**crack.**_ ) She frantically looked around until her gaze settled on Aymeric. She blinked rapidly, quite obviously not yet comprehending what she was seeing, until a smile finally bloomed across her features, her green eyes crinkling at the corners. “Well, fancy meeting you here,” she said, her cheerfulness tempered by the slight slur of exhaustion in her voice.

There were dark circles under her eyes, her hair was obviously unkempt up close, and her fingers were ever-so-slightly shaking from the particular combination of too much caffeine and not enough sleep, but Synnove Greywolfe was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Aymeric grinned up at her, not bothering to disguise how besotted he was with no witnesses about to see, and said, “What brings one of the celebrated Warriors of Light to Ishgard a bell before midnight?” He took a few steps closer to the ladder and held out his arms.

Synnove winced as she closed and shelved the book she had been reading. “Thal’s balls, that late?” She slid to the edge of the ladder’s seat, pushed off with her right hand and foot, and unceremoniously dropped into his grasp.

He tightened his hold on her as he caught her, drawing her close, and he dropped a kiss on each of her eyelids, relishing the giggles the action elicited from her. Another kiss on her nose, one to the beauty mark at the side of her chin, and then he finally kissed her properly. Synnove, in turn, languidly draped her arms around his shoulders and ran her fingers through the hairs on the nape of his neck, practically purring as she did. He hummed appreciatively against her lips, and they both ended up laughing into the kiss.

(Next to them, Tyr sighed, and rolled his eyes.)

Aymeric reluctantly drew away and set her on her feet, keeping Synnove steady as she wobbled and her spine _**cracked**_ yet again. His beloved immediately leaned back into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and slouching so her cheek could rest over his heart. He smiled and returned the hug, resting his chin on her head. He closed his eyes and swayed with her gently, enjoying the familiar and much-missed comfort of her presence.

Finally, Synnove sighed and said, voice mostly muffled against his coat, “To answer your question, I’m here on Guild business. The Scholasticate sent a formal request to the Guild, asking for assistance in assessing the current state of Ishgard’s arcanima program. Guildmistress Thubyrgeim decided to send me, considering my history with Ishgard, and the Scholasticate in particular.”

“And I’m certain it has nothing to do with the roof being blown off one of the laboratories at some point during the past fortnight.”

She reached up and swatted his arm. “Hush, you.”

Aymeric snickered into her hair.

Synnove swatted him again before wrapping her arm back around him. “I had planned on saying hello to you this morning at the Congregation,” she said, “but you were in a meeting. So I came here to get a look at the reference material they had, and…” She drummed her fingers against his back and sighed. “Well, it’s _me._ Lost track of time.”

He hummed noncommittally. Any commentary on his part about her work habits would be the pot calling the kettle black. Instead, he said, “And what is the verdict on the state of the Republic of Ishgard’s arcanima program?”

She shifted, and he tilted his head so he could meet her gaze as she propped her chin on his chest. “Do you want the truth?” she said.

“Yes.”

“The whole truth?”

“Of course.”

“Nothing but the truth, so help you gods?”

“Absolutely.”

Synnove stared at him and said, utterly deadpan, “It’s shite.”

Aymeric burst out laughing.

“I am completely serious, love, it’s a godsdamned _travesty,_ ” she said, gesticulating wildly at the shelf behind them. “Most of these books were years out of date when Ishgard closed itself off before the Calamity. Shite is being generous, I have texts in their fourteenth edition that you have in only their first, if you have them at all. There aren’t even any carbuncle summoning arrays that I can find! Does the Church have something against carbuncles?”

He pressed his face into her hair in a vain attempt to stifle his laughs. “My dear Synnove,” he said once he had slightly calmed, “have I told you recently how much I love you?”

“I love you, too, Aymeric, but I see what you're trying to do, don’t distract me, this is serious-”

That drew a fresh peal of laughter from him, and he pulled her back into their hug. Synnove grumbled into his chest about disrespectful lovers and antiquated academics, her vocabulary taking a turn for the very colorful Lominsan. She was returning his embrace, however, so she wasn’t _truly_ cross with him.

Finally, once his laughter was interrupted by a yawn, he said, “I'm sure the Scholasticate can wait to hear your report tomorrow. For now, let’s get some food into you and then put you to bed, hm?”

Synnove yawned herself and snuggled into his side as they began to walk down the row of shelves, Tyr obediently trotting after them with Synnove's travel pack carried in his mouth. “Only if you’re joining me,” she said.

Aymeric dropped a kiss onto her hair. “Of course, my love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! :D


	26. Sunset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 26: Sacred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 26, 2017.

Final Prayer was always quiet; too close to the Burning Wall and the Amalj’aa for the comfort of most pilgrims, even for the most pious. Even before the Calamity, however, when it was still at Sandgate, the Warden's mark had been rarely visited. The vast majority of Ul’dahns were followers of Nald’thal, and Azeyma’s tiny shrine was off the beaten path from both Nald’s Reflection and Thal’s Respite; Seekers of the Sun might visit to pay their respects, particularly the tribes of the Sagolii, but even they were few and far between.

Synnove preferred it that way. Far less likely to be forced into small talk with other pilgrims.

She sat perched on the edge of the cliff facing east, idly tapping her heels against the cliff face as she leaned against one of the posts of the fence ringing Final Prayer. In the little clearing itself behind her, Galette chased the soft blue glows of the local fireflies, chittering and yipping in delight; Ivar watched her from on top of the mark itself, her impertinent firebug. Tyr sat next to her, legs curled under himself so he was loaf-shaped, ears twitching every now and then as he dozed.

The eerie hum of the Burning Wall sang in her bones, and if she squinted just enough, she could see trails of aether wafting between the crystal arches, highlighted by the bright orange of the setting sun at her back. Another aetherial hum, deep and warm and comforting, pulsed behind her, centered on the Warden’s mark. The two intertwined until Synnove could barely tell them apart.

She breathed slowly, in and out. Somewhere, far, far to the east, the lamp lights were burning in Ala Mhigo as dusk deepened to night. Some were lit in celebration as another family was reunited; some were lit for the work of rebuilding to continue into the early hours of morning; and some were lit because the memories of nearly two decades of oppression would not let sleep come.

Synnove began to hum, unconsciously harmonizing with the aether of the land and of her patron goddess. She was a Warrior of Light, chosen of Hydaelyn, but blessed by Azeyma. _Truth_  was her weapon, and she would wield it well to see final justice done for the people of Ala Mhigo.


	27. Bar Brawling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 27: Foot in Mouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 27, 2017.

“Oh, gods, here we go.” Heron pinched the bridge of her nose.

Synnove groaned, and threw back a shot of whiskey.

It was the same script as always. They would hit one of the dive bars in Ul’dah--one was always opening to replace another that hadn't been able to pay the bribes to the Brass Blades--and Rereha would get involved in card games while Heron and Synnove nursed drinks off to the side and traded rapid-fire gossip like Lominsan fishwives. Someone at the card table would lose an exorbitant amount of gil; half the time it was probably Rereha. Accusations of cheating would be made, either by or _against_ Rereha, which had a fifty-fifty chance of turning out to be valid. Regardless, insults would be thrown.

“What, you and this pathetic stick of a gutter-rat? Don’t make me laugh!”

And Rereha had a _gift_  for saying the one thing that would turn a verbal assault into a physical one.

The Sea Wolf she had been trading barbs with stood up and flipped the table with a roar. “Insult _me_  all ye want, ye entitled, highborn _bitch,_ but ye d’ _NOT_  bring me brother into it!”

“Shite,” Heron said under her breath. She stopped pinching the bridge of her nose, but only because she started banging her forehead against the tabletop instead.

Synnove knocked back another shot.

The Sea Wolf charged. Rereha went for his knees. The bar _exploded._

The table the two friends sat at was the only spot of calm in the chaos as the other patrons joined the brawl. Heron slowly shook her head. “Why,” she said, her tone all exasperated disbelief. “Why does this happen every time. She’s a fucking _bard._ ”

“You know Rere,” Synnove said, splashing another finger of whiskey into her little glass. “Always has to defy the stereotypes, ‘specially the ones she doesn’t care for.” She knocked back that shot, too, and poured out the last of the whiskey from her bottle.

A combatant came up behind Heron, reaching for her with a drunken war cry. The paladin didn’t look at him, just grabbed his wrist and threw him over her shoulder while she was still seated. He hit the floor with a _THUD_  and an angry yell. Heron stomped on his groin, and his shout turned choked off and _very_  high-pitched as he curled in on himself.

Synnove swallowed her last shot and sighed forlornly at the empty bottle. Then she grabbed it by the neck, stood half out of her chair, and swung the bottle around so it connected with the head of another drunkard lunging her way. The bottle broke, and the drunkard collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. Synnove straightened to her full height and sneered down at the body.

Over the din, Rereha could be heard _still_  egging on her opponent.

“I’ll clear the path, you get Rere?” Heron said as she got to her feet.

Synnove saluted, a sloppy imitation of a Maelstrom officer, and the pair knocked their armguards together. Then the summoner whirled on the ball of her foot, punched another brawler attempting to sneak up on her--so hard a tooth went flying--and dove into the main fray.

Heron picked up her shield and slapped a generous fistful of gil on the tabletop. (One of the waitresses darted out from the safety of the bar to swoop it into her skirts, then used her heavy wooden serving tray to _smack_  a patron trying to get handsy in the chaos.) She rotated her neck until she heard her vertebrae give a satisfying _pop!_ , and began the too familiar task of plowing a route to safety. Hopefully this time they could get out of here before the Blades showed up. Paying bail to those crooks was never fun.


	28. Academic Integrity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 28: Rivalry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 28, 2017.
> 
> Featuring Jai's Keltgeim Eyristerwyn and Chaemera's A'khebica Ginwa!

A howl of rage echoed throughout the Gate.

While the sound made the merchants in the customs hall pause, the employees and residents of Mealvaan’s Gate (and more than a few Yellowjackets who had duties in and around the Guild) did not bat an eye. The sound was not that unusual, as it tended to follow failed experiments, ink spills on to rare books, or the discovery of a missing magical item. Nor was it unusual to hear from _that_  particular arcanist, particularly when her prized aether-infused chalk had been taken.

When Synnove burst into the dining hall, again, no one blinked.

The furious roar of, “ _THAT SON OF A MONGREL BITCH WILL SWIVING DIE!_ ” as she strode through the room, Ivar bounding behind her and cackling, caught everyone by surprise, though.

The Highlander threw a research journal onto one of the long tables, already open to one of its articles. Keltgeim had a split second to yank the summoning array she had been working on out of the way, and she gave her friend a dirty look as she carefully stashed it to the side. A’khebica tugged her hands out of Carby’s innards and peered over the Sea Wolf’s shoulder.

“Bahram Zarir?” Kelt said, reading out the name of the article’s author. “Isn’t that the Hannish alchemist who-”

Synnove actually _growled._  Ivar looked positively delighted at the sound.

“Hoo boy,” Kelt said under her breath, and began skimming the article, running her finger down the paragraphs. She flipped the page, eyes flicking back and forth behind her glasses. When she reached a set of equations, however, she sucked in a sharp breath.

“…These are your theorems for the aetheric gemstone infusion process.” The Sea Wolf’s voice was utterly flat.

Synnove _snarled._  A couple of arcanists at another table picked up their plates and books and cups and bolted from the hall.

Khebi’s ears were standing straight up. “Didn’t you just publish those two months ago, Miss Synnove?” she said. “I didn’t know copies of the journal had been distributed to Radz-at-Han already!”

Keltgeim, meanwhile, flipped to the end of the article and began scanning the citations. Her eyebrows climbed higher and higher as she did, until she reached the end. She raised her head slowly and met Synnove’s eyes. After a moment, she finally said, “No credit. For the, uh, second time, is it?”

Khebi looked utterly flabbergasted.

“ _I WILL RIP OUT HIS SPINE THROUGH HIS THROAT,_ ” Synnove bellowed. Half the arcanists still in the room jumped. Her hands were curled into claws as she began to pace like a hunting she-wolf. “ _I WILL BREAK OPEN HIS RIBS AND FEED HIM HIS STILL BEATING HEART. I WILL MOUNT HIS HEAD ON A PIKE AND DECORATE MY OFFICE WITH HIS ENTRAILS AS A WARNING TO **NOT FUCKING PLAGIARIZE MY FUCKING RESEARCH.**_ ”

The Seeker leaned closer to Kelt and whispered, “The amount of force required rip out an adult hyur’s spine would be considerable. Could Miss Synnove do that?”

Kelt gingerly pushed the research journal away from herself, then crossed her arms. “She’s mad enough for it,” she said.

"Mad as in 'insane,' or mad as in 'angry?'"

"Yes."

A _CLANK!_  caught the attention of both of them, and the two looked down. Ivar, tails waving in excitement, held the end of a giant battleaxe in his mouth, one set with materia and practically reeking of heavy enchantment. As for where he had gotten it… Keltgeim eyed Carby, now sitting next to Ivar instead of Khebi, with deep suspicion.

Carby hiccuped. Khebi sighed in exasperation.

Synnove had yet to stop ranting, getting progressively more detailed and bloody as she continued, but she leaned down and picked the axe up with ease. She hefted it over her shoulder, stalking out of the hall with an ugly look on her face and a snarl of, “I’m going to Thavnair.” Ivar cheered and scurried after her.

“…Should we stop her?” Khebi said.

Keltgeim thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “Nah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you remember that bloodfeud Synnove has with a Hannish alchemist that Rereha mentioned in _Fulmineous_? Yep. That's the dude here.
> 
> Also Synnove had to be tackled by two Yellowjacket squads to subdue her. She just dragged the first one behind her.


	29. Cartomancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 29: Prophecy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 29, 2017.

Aunt Angharad set the glass and bottle of arak on the kitchen table in front of Synnove. The summoner recognized the label, and whimpered. “The 1549,” she whispered. “Oh, this is bad.”

The elder Highlander sat across from her, crossing her arms on the tabletop. She looked at her niece with sympathetic grey eyes, and said, “Your mother found out about your relationship with Ser Aymeric.”

Synnove’s jaw dropped as she made a choked off, garbled noise that was half rage and half terror. She stared at her aunt with wide, hunted eyes, and grasped blindly for the arak. When her hand hit the glass, she wrapped it around the bottle of the neck, pulled the cork with her other hand, and poured a glass with shaking hands. That done, she slid the glass to Aunt Angharad, tipped her head back, and took a long, deep pull straight from the bottle for herself.

Aunt Angharad sipped her arak, and waited for Synnove to set the bottle down with a loud _clack._ “Isolde being Isolde,” she said, “she immediately wanted to leverage that relationship and gain the Greene Shipping Consortium a much stronger foothold and presence in the Ishgardian economy. Especially since the East Aldenard Trading Company hasn't made any noise about moving north yet.”

Synnove _snarled,_ and took another swig of alcohol.

“That being said,” Aunt Angharad went on, idly turning her glass in her hands, “both your da _and_ your brother are still in the process of talking her out of it. Loudly, and with great vigor, based on the dinner discussion.”

The summoner stared, incredulous. “Da I can understand,” she said, slowly, clearly still trying to process what she had been just told. “Mostly because he doesn’t want me to murder Mother in cold blood. But _Faramund?_ You’re not having me on, are you? He’s as ruthless as Mother when it comes to getting the Consortium back to its pre-invasion level of wealth and prestige.”

Aunt Angharad smiled grimly. “On your Uncle Tyr’s bones, I’m not having you on,” she said. Synnove immediately stilled, and sat up a little straighter; Aunt Angharad had yet to make that oath lightly, and she was not going to start today. The Highlander matron continued: “The two of you have never gotten along, that’s true, but he’s intelligent and canny enough to realize Isolde putting the business first yet again, and in this particular manner, would be the death knell of your relationship with the whole family at the very _least._ It’s common knowledge in Ul’dah that you and Isolde are estranged, after all. This level of insult? Faramund knows you would have absolutely no qualms about tearing down the Consortium and crushing it to dust with your own two hands just out of spite.”

Synnove snorted. Neither Aunt Angharad nor Faramund were wrong; she had enough influence as a Warrior of Light that if she loudly and publicly disavowed the name “Greywolfe” and all ties to that family, and adopted a new name, Eorzea and its leaders would accept her decision with nary a shrug, and possibly some intense curiosity about the circumstances of it. And if she used that same influence to further throw the Green Shipping Consortium under the cart, or even openly support one of its many rivals, the Consortium would be _ruined._

Mother had never taken that threat seriously. Which, honestly, was hypocritically hilarious, considering she had always been eager to use her daughter's reputation for her own gain. Maybe it was time to loudly discuss on Sapphire Avenue how _helpful_ the East Aldenard Trading Company had been while she and the others had been in the Far East, how _accommodating_ and _gracious_ Lord Lolorito and his proxy Hancock had been in securing safe passage for the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.

Her aunt sipped her arak. “Personally, I also think Faramund has enough of an optimist in him to want to one day find a way to be on better terms with you, purely as siblings,” she said, “but I’m an old dreamer.”

Synnove sighed heavily and set her forehead on the table. “Suppose it could be worse,” she muttered. “Could have had _no_ male family members worth a damn.”

“That’s the spirit,” Aunt Angharad said cheerfully. “Now get yourself a proper glass, you’re not draining that bottle dry until the date palms in Coldhearth are ready for the first harvest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, this is based off [THIS](http://dragons-bones.tumblr.com/post/165372169101/) tarot reading done for Synnove by Chaemera. :D


	30. Snow Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 30: Frost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted November 30, 2017.
> 
> The style of the Mealvaan's Gate transmission is originally Chaemera's idea. :D We brainstorm a lot.

What ended up finally drawing her to full wakefulness, after at least an hour of muzzy, warm snuggling and light dozing with her still-dreaming lover, was the fact that her nose was swiving _freezing._

Synnove huffed quietly and squinted her eyes open against the morning light. At some point during the night, she had transformed from the little spoon of the cuddle pile into a grasping, long-limbed octopus, and Aymeric had slid further down the mattress so he was completely under the blankets. Her left leg was pinned under his side, her ankle hooked around his thigh, while her right leg was thrown over his waist. Her left arm was stuck beneath her, though she hadn’t quite lost all feeling in it yet, and her right was snug around Aymeric’s neck and head, her fingers buried in his silken hair. Aymeric’s own arms were firmly wrapped around her waist, pressing her close against him, and he had nuzzled the collar of her night shirt out of the way so he could press his face into her neck; his soft, deep breaths rhythmically puffed across her collarbone and throat.

It was almost enough to lull her back to sleep, except for how damned cold her nose was.

She finished blinking the crust from her eyes and turned her head to peer at the window, squinting against the morning rays. What she saw made her breathe in sharply in surprise: the sunlight was refracting through hard rime crusting the glass, casting small, dancing rainbows at the foot of the bed. A familiar sight for frigid Ishgardian mornings, no matter the time of year. This, however, was _La Noscea._

Since the Calamity, weather patterns across Eorzea had stayed eerily consistent, with very little seasonal shift. Mild winters had always been a fact of life along the coast, of course, but Vylbrand used to experience deep chills at the very heart of winter. She could count the number of steep temperature drops in Limsa Lominsa on one hand since Dalamud fell and have fingers left over, and they hadn't had a single nor'western since the year before Nael van Darnus and her VIth Legion marched on Eorzea. Regular snowfalls and frost? This was the first she had seen this far south in years.

Perhaps the weather was finally returning to normal? Or possibly it was a sudden aetheric shift from wind to ice? What would cause--

“I can hear you thinking.”

Synnove startled and twitched, all of her limbs reflexively tightening as she did. Aymeric grumbled and squeezed her waist in retaliation, nuzzling closer and huffing against her neck at the same time.

“Sorry, love,” she murmured, resting her cheek on top of his head.

“No, you’re not,” he said, voice still rough with sleep. “You wouldn’t be you if you were not--” he yawned heavily “--forever contemplating the mysteries of the natural world.”

She made a disgusted noise and rubbed her cheek against his hair _hard,_ in a way she knew was uncomfortable. “Stop being articulate at this hour, it’s rude.”

He snickered into her collarbone.

A chiming warble sounded, and Galette leaped onto the bed, crawling up the covers so she could drape herself over Synnove’s shoulder. She meowed around the linkpearl cuff held carefully in her mouth and blinked at her mama, tails cheerily waving behind her. The ‘pearl attuned to the Mealvaan’s Gate operating center was chiming softly.

Synnove grumbled, raising her head, and wiggled her left arm out from beneath herself, twisting it so she could hold her hand beneath Galette’s chin. The carbuncle obediently dropped the cuff, but stayed where she was. Galette sniffed at the tufts of black hair sticking out from under the blankets, and reach out to gently pap Aymeric’s head with her paw. “Myaaa?” she said.

Aymeric giggled.

“Hush a moment, both of you,” Synnove said, although internally she was a puddle of mush over how adorable her carbuncle and her beloved were. She held the cuff up to her ear and thumbed the ‘pearl’s connection open.

> \---GATE: ARCANISTS//LA NOSCEA//DIRECTIVE  
>  IMMEDIATE ACTION ORDER  
>  CRIMSON DAWN has declared SAPPHIRE TIDE in effect.  
>  STOP STOP STOP V115QXD203CLS001
> 
> MESSAGE WILL REPEAT
> 
> V115QXD203CLS000 CRYSTAL CHANT  
>  MEALVAAN'S GATE: ARCANISTS//LA NOSCEA---

Synnove thumbed the linkpearl off and tossed the cuff to the other side of the bed. “Admiral’s declared a special holiday,” she said. “City is shut down, nonessential personnel have the day off. Emergency personnel only. Guess who isn't emergency personnel?”

Aymeric hummed into her skin. “I vote we spend the day in bed.”

“That sounds marvelous. Seconded.“

“Motion carries.” He nipped playfully at her collarbone. She purred, stretching languorously.

Galette whined piteously. Tyr suddenly poked his head over the side of the bed, nose twitching as he stared directly at his mama with large, dark, sad eyes. “ _Maaaaaaow,_ ” he said plaintively. Ivar jumped onto the foot of the bed and began bouncing up and down, chittering impatiently. _Bacon! Mama, I want bacon!_

Aymeric groaned. Synnove sighed into his hair. “My children are demanding breakfast,” she grumbled.

Two loud _groooooowls_ suddenly filled the air, startling Ivar enough that he fell to the bed in a tumble of confused ruby fur with a squawk. There was a beat of silence, and then both she and Aymeric were shaking with helpless laughter into one another. Galette slid off Synnove’s shoulder with a yip at the movement, and nudged hard at her mama’s elbow, unhappy to be dislodged from her spot.

“Apparently it’s not just the carbuncles desiring food, my love,” Aymeric said. "I suppose I can help feed the ravenous hordes if no one minds omelettes."

Tyr made a boofing noise deep in his chest, paws tapping excitedly on the floor.

"That's a vote for yes," Synnove said. "I want mine with aldgoat cheese and spinach. Eggs need bacon, too, of course."

Ivar cheered, scrambling to his feet and resuming his mattress-shaking bouncing.

"And of course breakfast would never be complete without something sweet," Aymeric said. Galette shoved her head over Synnove's shoulder, vibrating with anticipation.

Synnove nodded. "Pancakes."

"With chocolate chips."

Galette squealed. Synnove winced, ears ringing. "Baby, ow," she said.

Aymeric, meanwhile, reluctantly released his grip on her waist and shimmied up the bed so he was no longer buried by blankets. He blinked owlishly in the light, eyes struggling to adjust from the sudden change. Galette booped her paw on his nose. Aymeric returned the motion, grinning as the carbuncle's eyes crossed to stare at his finger.

Synnove took the opportunity to now bury her nose in his neck. She sighed happily, even as Aymeric yelped in shock at the burst of ice against his skin. “Yay,” she said.

“I see how it is,” he said around a smile, tone exaggeratedly mournful. “I’m just a convenient living brazier for your use in the depths of winter.”

“Thermodynamic equilibrium,” Synnove said, sing-song. The two dissolved into giggles again, and stopped only when three loud, angry _“MAOW!”_ s rang out.

“All right, all right, you bottomless pits, we’re getting up. Budge over, Galette.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. Thank you guys for your comments throughout this month; I'm honestly delighted you enjoyed these!
> 
> Happy New Year!


End file.
